Shannon worker is first Olympic torchbearer

It will be carried by the some of the biggest names in Irish sport and it will traverse some of our most iconic landscapes prior to the Olympic Games but a Shannon Airport hangar and an airport duty manager were never part of the plan.

Until yesterday.

Rory McIlroy, Michael Carruth, Paul McGrath and even Jedward were slated as official “torchbearers” but Natasha Naughton-O’Keeffe got there before anyone, and she could hardly believe her luck when she was told hold the torch, following an emergency stop in Shannon yesterday.

“I certainly wasn’t expecting to be holding the Olympic torch when I came into work this afternoon but it’s certainly made the evening shift a lot easier,” she said.

The whole sequence of events unfolded when an unscheduled fuel stop by a British Airways flight resulted in the Olympic Torch also making an equally unexpected stop in Ireland yesterday.

British Airways flight BA2036 was one of two flights forced to divert to Shannon to take on extra fuel after air traffic control issues in Canada forced them to take longer routes than anticipated.

The torch, which is due to visit Belfast and Dublin in early June, was being brought to England by Mr Piers Skinner, director of customer management for Coca-Cola.

It was only when Mr Skinner got off the flight to board another service to Heathrow that Ms Naughton-O’Keeffe got to hold the torch during a security check.