Mike Keohane is celebrating life through sport

It’s not just about winning for Mike Keohane, from Rosscarbery, Co Cork, who won a gold and two silver medals at the weekend at the British Transplant Games.

“It shows what transplantation can do. I have never felt as well. The aim of the transplant games is to celebrate life through sport,” he said.

Mike, 41, was critically ill when he was called for a life-saving liver transplant on Christmas Eve almost eight years ago — he had been told he had just eight weeks to live.

There were 900 competitors at the annual games in Newcastle and Mike, one of nine transplant recipients on the Irish team, won a gold medal in the 5km race and silver medals in the shot put and discus throw.

“I am in great health altogether. I have not had any issues since the transplant operation back in 2007. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I have been competing with the Irish Transplant Team,” said Mike.

“We go to the British games every year, the European Transplant and Dialysis Games every two years and the world games in between.

“They keep me focused on training and have certainly helped me to remain in good health.”

Mike is parish sacristan at St Fachtna’s Church, Rosscarbery, and football coach at nearby Mount St Michael Secondary School where his wife, Dee Keohane, is deputy principal. He was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis in 1993 and his condition was managed with medication until his health deteriorated in 2005. In 2007, Prof John Hegarty, head of the liver unit at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin, put him at the top of the transplant list.

Mike said his personal trainer, Maurice Moore, had helped him to work out a programme and stick to it. All of the competitors wanted to give their best at the games — it was their way of honouring their donors.

“Only for the fact that people become donors and carry the card, the likes of myself would be dead many years ago.”

Altogether, the team which included 12-year-old Jack O’Brien from Navan, Co Meath, who received a kidney from his mother, Cassandra, when he was two, came home with six gold, five silver, and three bronze medals.