Gillick Goes In Search Of New Breed

David Gillick kick-started the second wave of the New Breed campaign in search of the next Irish athletics star with great success at St Benildus on September 23rd. The former two-time European indoor 400m champion and Beijing Olympian worked alongside the Athletics Ireland Regional Development team in St Benildus with a crop of the school's first year students.

The initiative is in assocation with New Balance and is geared towards unearthing the next generation of talent in a fun environment. The students did three main tests: a 20m sprint using state of the art speed gate equipment, the standing long jump and a standing jump for height.

"It was great to be back in my old school and I think it went really well," said Gillick on the second wave of the New Breed campaign which started last April. "St Benildus has a proud tradition of running and it helped improve my capabilities and give me the confidence that one day I would represent Ireland at the Olympic Games. It was great to get that message across to the kids and also to see some good results in the tests from the current crop of students.

"It's important that we do things like this to plant the seed in their mind that they could be future stars of the sport as well as seeing their current capabilities."

The next wave of the campaign will be in Presentation College Carlow on October 20th.