Seventeen Irish sporting organisations received welcome news yesterday with the announcement that Sport Ireland’s board approved an additional €1.5 million in high-performance funding.

World rowing champions Mark O’Donovan and Shane O’Driscoll don't make the cut for podium funding.

Good, but could do better. If Ireland’s performance at last year’s Olympic Games were a report card it would read as exactly that.

Mark Rohan, from Ballynahown, near Athlone, is a former Westmeath U21 footballer who was left paralysed, from the chest down, after a road accident in 2001.

Jason Smyth (28), a visually impaired sprinter from Derry, is officially the ‘fastest Paralympian on the planet.’ He will be writing a monthly blog in the build-up to the 2016 Paralympic Games.

Ireland’s Paralympic team has been set a target of eight medals from this year’s Games in Brazil.

Ireland’s 2016 Olympic ambitions have received a €2 million cash injection that will allow sports to fund acclimatisation camps, meet competition costs and, in some cases, provide extra equipment for athletes targeting the Games in Brazil.

As if the inclement nature of the weather isn’t enough of an obstacle for Irish athletes’ endurance training, Mark Rohan has to cope with the added worry that failure to make the top three at the Para-Cycling Road World Championships in August will cost him €20,000.

Luis Suarez’s injury. Italy training in a sauna. Leighton Baines’ reading habits.

Paralympics Ireland lost one of its leading lights yesterday as Co. Down swimmer Bethany Firth’s bid to change allegiance to Great Britain was given the green light by the International Paralympic Committee.

Cycling Ireland President Denis Toomey believes that an indoor velodrome would lead to more medals on the European and World stage after Kildare woman Caroline Ryan was the latest to medal at a major event over the weekend.

Chairman of Tandem Cycling Ireland and also chairman of the paracycling commission, Denis Toomey was appointed new president of Cycling Ireland at the Board’s AGM in Monaghan on Saturday.

Never mind the Republic of Ireland’s loss in Cologne, or Munster’s woeful experience in Edinburgh, Irish sport’s most damaging defeat is about to be recorded today, and in Leinster House, of all places.

Double gold medallists Michael McKillop and Jason Smyth have been denied the opportunity to defend their Paralympic titles in Rio.

Ireland's most successful Paralympic team ever touched down tonight with 16 medals en tow, receiving a rapturous reception from the thousands of well-wishers at Dublin Airport.

It was the most incredible two weeks in London.

As the days ticked by and Ireland’s medal count climbed higher and higher at the Paralympic Games, the fear mounted just as quickly that people might get the wrong impression that it was all just a wee bit too easy.

Preparations are under way to welcome back an Irish Paralympic team that raised the bar of expectation here and across the sporting world.

Ireland’s 49-strong Paralympic team will take to London’s packed arenas this week and next with good luck messages from luminaries such as Katie Taylor, Colin Farrell and the Munster Rugby team ringing in their ears.

Just weeks after the Olympic Games, it is now the turn of our Paralympic athletes to take centre stage.

Riders had to dip into their own pockets after expected funding for the Paralympics did not materialise, according to their chef d’equipe.

Para-equestrian riders had to dip into their own pockets, after expected funding for the Paralympics did not materialise, according to their chef d’equipe.

Athletes from Vietnam and Zambia will train in Ireland ahead of the Paralympic Games, it has emerged.

Paralympics Ireland is set to step out of the shadow of its Olympic counterpart this summer with the announcement that the Games are to be screened live in this country for the first time.

James O’Reilly and his pals on the Ballincollig junior B football team had an idea.

Irish 200 metres record-holder Paul Hession plans to be in the shake-up with Usain Bolt and reach the business end of their events at the London Olympics this summer.

The Irish Sports Council has today announced details of its funding package for 2011.