Sung shines as Long breaks pain and language barriers

“LEGS, arms, eyebrows, chest hair, nipples, inner thigh, everything. And I mean everything. I raised €2,500 that night but they took every bit of hair off me with the waxing,” said Ross Long as he thought back to that night in the Gaelic Bar.

The Carrigaline local organised a quiz night in the pub and a waxing charity drive so he could get a place on the plane to the Special Olympics in Athens. He also had the Kieran Kramer band entertain the locals, the Corner House in the city’s Coburg Street opened their doors and Lifeimi Mafi donated a Munster jersey to raffle. Friends rallied, favours were called in and the €3,750 that every Special Olympics volunteer needs to table was boxed off.

Thousands of miles away, a 14-year-old Chinese athlete was making less painful preparations for his trip to the Greek capital. And Jun Sung turned out to be quite happy that Long left the Gaelic Bar without a whisper of body hair — and his fundraising problems sorted.