Cork's Mairéad Kavanagh gets Olympic judging qualification after 20 years study

A woman from Cork will be in the thick of competition at the greatest sports show on Earth next week — but she is not one of Ireland’s 77 athletes.

Mairéad Kavanagh (nee O’Callaghan) has qualified for Rio as a gymnastics judge and has had to study for more than 20 years to qualify for her first Olympic Games.

She is among only 30 ‘Grade 1’ female gymnastics judges in the world and says she achieved the highest qualification “thanks to 23 years of studying hard”.