The Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI) is hopeful that the International Olympic Council's (IOC) investigation into Pat Hickey and the Rio 2016 ticketing scandal will be completed before the Tokyo Games in 2020.

Gaelic Games has overtaken soccer as Ireland’s favourite sport, according to a major national sports survey.

Reigning Women’s National league champions Wexford Youths will face National Cup winners Cork City twice in the next eight days, starting with a league encounter at Ferrycarrig Park this evening. Cork centre-half Ciara McNamara was selected on the League’s Team of the Year last season.

The GAA has contributed £300,000 to the £3.8million development at the Clydebank Community Sports Hub.

The cancellation of this year’s interpros looks to have sounded the death-knell for a once-great GAA competition, writes John Fogarty.

The Prendergasts recently celebrated 50 years of marriage. They also raised a glass to the enduring success of Paul’s organ transplant, writes Margaret Jennings.

98 students from 15 sports have won scholarships from UCC for their sporting and academic excellence.

A lot can change in the space of a year. Just ask Claire O’Riordan, who went from being a back-up striker to Wexford Youths’ top scorer and a league winner.

She doesn’t hold back outside the ring either.

Ireland's Fionnuala Britton had to make-do with eighth place as 40-year-old Jo Pavey made athletics history in Zurich this evening.

Thomas Edison is likely to spearhead Tony Martin’s team for next week’s Galway Festival in the Guinness Galway Hurdle.

Kid Cassidy (11st 10lb), second in the Grand Annual at Cheltenham in 2013 and the only horse to have lowered the colours of Sire De Grugy last season, heads the weights for next week’s thetote.com Galway Plate.

Thomas Barr and Mark English shattered stadium records at tonight’s Morton Games.

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach has his expressed confidence over the financial implications of hosting the 2022 Winter Games after formally declaring the three candidate cities in Lausanne on Monday.

Limerick Gay Games Committee was yesterday encouraged to try and win the 2022 Gay Games, having lost out to Paris for the 2016 event.

As the Olympic flame makes it way to Russia, Amnesty International activists are highlighting human rights abuses there.

A man who won gold for power-lifting in the World Dwarf Games, the equivalent of the Olympics for little people, says nobody should let a disability stand in the way of “following your dreams”.

Forty-five years since its maiden outing, the HSE Community Games continues to capture the imagination of the Irish sporting public.

Fifty-six police officers were injured during loyalist riots in Belfast city centre in a night of chaotic violence that the North's Chief Constable has described as mindless anarchy.

The most successful Irish Paralympic team in the last 25 years will arrive home this evening to a hero's welcome.

Ireland’s Paralympic team took a break from the medal trail yesterday after six positively greedy days here in London but the pursuit will resume today when Mark Rohan and Jason Smyth attempt to double up on golds claimed earlier this week.

Riders, rebels, ramblers and rugby players are all in TG4’s autumn schedule unveiled in Dublin yesterday.

Global online games giant Blizzard Entertainment is to cut 200 jobs from the almost 900-strong workforce at its European customer support centre in Cork.

FIVE of us were sitting in the canteen last Wednesday.

BROADCAST revenues between 2014 and 2016 for the Olympic Games will exceed €2.79billion, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge confirmed in Durban yesterday.

A massive homecoming is planned for the Irish Special Olympics Team tomorrow as they arrive into Dublin airport with a terrific total of 107 medals from the Athens games.

THE 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games is particularly special this year as it takes place in Athens, the home of the first Olympics, from Sunday until July 4.

THE late Dermot Earley’s family were honoured at the GAA’s president’s awards last night with the creation of a new category, named after the former Roscommon footballer, which they won.

GAELIC GAMES teams have embraced the area of match statistics to gain a vital edge, and now a leading performance analyst will address a Dublin seminar on how that edge might be achieved.

IN light of the recent illuminating reports in the media regarding the state of intellectual disabilities service provision nationally — we, the undersigned, are calling for the establishment of a properly researched, properly informed policy regarding the future needs of people with intellectual disabilities in Ireland.

Irish surfer Liam Joyce is set to take on the world's best surfers at the ISA Billabong World Surfing Games in Costa Rica.

MUNSTER’S Heineken Cup Pool One fourth-round clash with Perpignan will go ahead at the French club’s Stade Aimé Giral, and not in Barcelona.

The 2009 Vhi GAA Cúl Camps were officially launched this morning in Croke Park by Christy Cooney, in his first official outing as President of GAA, Declan Moran, Director of Marketing and Business Development, Vhi Healthcare, Anthony Daly current Dublin hurling manager and former captain of the Clare senior intercounty hurling team, and Colm O'Rourke, former inter-county Gaelic footballer for Meath.

THE “face” of the Special Olympics national fundraising drive has been named Cork person of the month for April.

HORSE SPORT IRELAND is seriously considering making a bid to stage the 2014 World Equestrian Games (WEG), according to its chairman Joe Walsh.

I HAD a dream the other night that quickly turned into a nightmare. A prominent Dublin barrister, Michael McDowell, formerly Minister for Justice, had somehow been returned to the Dáil and was appointed Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism.

DERVAL O’ROURKE finished last of the seven competitors in her Golden League 100m hurdles race at the Bislett Games in Oslo last night, in a time of 13.19 secs.

SHOWJUMPER Marie Burke hopes her third place in yesterday’s Longines Grand Prix at the Fáilte Ireland Dublin Horse Show will earn her a place in Ireland’s World Equestrian Games (WEG) squad.

I TRAVELLED a bit of the country over the weekend, accompanying the Special Olympics torch run. It’s an event that has been on the go for a good many years now.

A Longford student is this evening fighting for his life after a freak accident when a roof collapsed under him on Friday night.

The draw for the first knock-out round of the Champions League is as follows:

Kelly Holmes has won her second gold medal for Great Britain in the women’s 1500metres final.

THE GAA are poised to abandon plans to use a provincial venue for the International Rules Series against Australia.

Athens’ hotel workers, demanding their wages be doubled, will stage a one-day strike next week and threatened to continue their protest during the August 13-29 Games.

Jearl Miles-Clark booked a ticket to her fifth Olympic Games following her victory in the women’s 800m final at the US track and field trials in Sacramento last night.