Visually impaired canoeist challenge

TWO visually impaired Irish canoeists will take part in the Irish Sea Kayaking Challenge 2006 and brave the Irish Sea for charity.

The Challenge, launched yesterday will include eight other paddlers who are undertaking the kayak course from Pembrokeshire, South Wales, to Carnsore Point in July.

The challenge aims to raise funds for Ireland’s National Council for the Blind and the Children’s Medical and Research Foundation at Our Lady’s Hospital, Crumlin.

This will be the first time that visually impaired sportsmen will cross the Irish Sea in double kayaks.

Mark Pollock and Tom Kennedy are both visually impaired sportsmen who continue to push boundaries by undertaking increasingly difficult sporting challenges.

Mark, 30, lives in Dublin and has participated in some of the most challenging races in the world — The Gobi Desert March, The North Pole Marathon and The New Zealand coast to coast. Tom Kennedy, 47, lives in Co Kilkenny and has competed in marathons and triathlons in Berlin, New York and Dublin. In 2001 he was the first visually impaired person to complete the gruelling Liffey Descent in a single canoe and went on to complete three further Liffey Descents.