Kevin Kilty named as Team Ireland Chef de Mission for Rio Olympics in 2016

Sparks · 04-12-2013 2:44pm #1

Fantastic news from the OCI website:

Kilty named as Team Ireland Chef de Mission

The Olympic Council of Ireland has announced that Kevin Kilty will be Team Ireland’s Chef de Mission for Rio 2016. Olympic Council of Ireland President Pat Hickey said, “In September of 2011, Kevin became a member of the Olympic Council of Ireland Executive Committee. He was a coach and Team Leader for Clay Pigeon Shooting in the Beijing 2008 and London 2012. As Chef de Mission he assumes control of the management of the Team providing leadership and operational planning ” Kevin Kilty said, “I am honoured to have been selected as Team Ireland Chef de Mission. I will be ensuring that we are committed to working closely with our Olympic Sports to ensure Team Ireland has the best possible support in place for our athletes”

Kevin Kilty bio:
Kevin became the first High Performance Director of the Irish Clay Pigeon Shooting Association upon his retirement from competitive international shooting in 2005. He brought a new philosophy and approach to high performance coaching and led a small team of talented shooters to early success with a World Championship silver medal, a team World Championship bronze, a European bronze and a World Cup silver medal”
As a coach, Kevin holds the highest coaching licence issued by the ISSF and is also recognised as a coach tutor by Coaching Ireland. Kevin has worked at both the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympic Games where he was coach and team manager for Irish Shooting.
During this time Kevin was appointed as the Head Clay Target Instructor with the International Shooting Sports Federation Training Academy, the training arm of the international shooting federation, where he is responsible for the development and delivery of coach education to the member federations of the ISSF. As an author and educator he is a regular contributor on coaching matters and is one of the authors of the ISSF coaching syllabus.
Kevin’s involvement in coaching continues through his role as chairman of the ISSF’s Coaches Committee where he represents coaches’ interests within the international federation. He is also the ISSF’s representative to the Association of Summer Olympic Federations (ASOIF) Sports Development and Education Group.

Absolutely fabulous news not only for Kevin but for Irish shooting in general - for a shooter to be given this kind of role is a major step up for the sport in general in terms of recognition. Well done Kevin!