Evans and Magee Confirmed for London

Irish badminton stars Chloe Magee and Scott Evans have had their places at the London Olympic Games confirmed.

Magee sealed her place on the team last December when she made the quarter-finals of the Irish Championships in Lisburn. The world number 46 was 26 on the list of 46 players to have qualified for the women's singles.

For Evans, world ranked 73 and just one place off automatic selection, there was a nervous wait until his place was confirmed.

It will be a second appearance for both at the Olympic Games. At Beijing four years ago, Magee, then aged 19, produced the first ever win by an Irish player at an Olympics when she progressed to the second round. Scott Evans, the first ever Irish men's singles player to qualify, went out in the opening round.

Competition for the two will begin at Wembley Arena on Saturday July 28. From the initial group stages, the 16 group winners will progress to the knockout stage of the competition, with finals from August 3-5.

Asian countries are expected to dominate. China, Indonesia and South Korea have won 23 of the 24 gold medals awarded since the sport's first appearance at the Games in 1992.

In an exciting time for the sport in Ireland, eight badminton nations, including Ireland, will take part in an officially sanctioned Pre- Olympic Games training camp in Dublin next month.

A total of 14 Olympians from badminton nations Iceland, Peru, Finland, Uganda, Mexico and Egypt are already confirmed. Former British and Korean Olympic coach Lee Jae Bok will supervise their training at the Marino Institute of Education along with Irish National Coach Daniel Magee. With women's singles a priority for the camp, Scott Evans will train in Paris with the French team that week.

The training camp comes to Dublin thanks to the support of the Irish Sports Council, the World Badminton Federation and Badminton Ireland.
Marino, a Badminton Europe-approved training centre, is key to an ambitious plan formulated by Badminton Ireland to identify and develop the next generation of Irish Olympians.