Transplant and dialysis athletes head for Slovenia Games

THE 29 Irish athletes who will fly out to Slovenia for the third European Transplant and Dialysis Games today are all hoping to do far better than the country’s Olympic squad.

Every one of them is hoping to build on Ireland’s fantastic performance in Budapest two years ago when a team of eight athletes won 32 metals.

The six-day event will be the largest European gathering of dialysed and transplanted people. Around 400 people will be taking part, including 60 dialysis patients from 37 countries.

Representing Team Ireland will be 20 athletes who have received kidney, pancreas or liver transplants, as well as nine who are undergoing dialysis treatment.

Among the group, aged between 22 and 59, will be Marie Mellon from Swinford in Co Mayo, a clerical officer in Mayo General Hospital who undergoes dialysis treatment three times a week at the hospital. Her 17-year-old daughter, Lisa, will also be travelling out with her.

Marie, aged 48, developed kidney failure after Lisa, an only child, was born. Her kidney condition was unrelated to the birth and had been developing since she was in her late teens. She underwent two kidney transplants. The first in 1990 was immediately rejected and the second in 1994 lasted until last year. Marie has been responding well to dialysis treatment and has no immediate plans to put her name down for a third transplant.

Both Marie and Lisa raised about €2,000 to participate in the games that get underway on Sunday.

Marie said she was feeling great and was hoping to do well in the 10-pin bowling and track and field events. “I have a restricting disease but this event shows that I can also be fit enough to compete with the best.”

Limerick GAA personality John Loftus, from Clarina, will be celebrating the fourth anniversary of his kidney transplant in Slovenia and also his birthday at the games. He will participate at table tennis and 10-pin bowling during the six-day event in Ljubljana.

Team Ireland trainer Karen Jackson who underwent a successful kidney transplant in 1988, pointed out that the team was competing in every event - 10-pin bowling, badminton, tennis, cycling, volleyball, swimming and track and field.

Karen, who has represented Ireland since 1993, was also team manager in Budapest: “The biggest challenge for me now is looking after the biggest team ever as well as trying to compete myself in the games.”

She competes in the badminton, shot put and 10-pin bowling events. She returned home from the last European games with three silver medals and a bronze.