RACHAEL BLACKMORE HAS been crowned RTÉ Sportsperson of the Year for 2021, following a year which saw the Tipperary jockey achieve a series of historic firsts on the racetrack.
In March, Blackmore became the first woman to be named leading jockey at the Cheltenham Festival after bringing six winners home, including success with Honeysuckle in the Champion Hurdle, an achievement which saw her become the first woman to win Cheltenham’s headline event.
A month later Blackmore achieved more history in becoming the first woman to win the Grand National, steering home Minella Times at Aintree.
The 32-year-old came out on top of an eight-person shortlist, which included six women.
The other nominees were Kellie Harrington, Ellen Keane, Cian Lynch, Leona Maguire, Jason Smyth, Katie Taylor and Vikki Wall.
Watch Rachael Blackmore – A Grand Year on RTÉ One on 29 December at 9.25pm
Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu was named Young Sportsperson of the year after a breakout season between the sticks for Stephen Kenny’s side, highlights of which included saving a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty away to Portugal and an extraordinary save in Luxembourg.
The42′s Paul Fennessy charted the 19-year-old’s rise in a Read earlier today.
Ireland’s lightweight rowing head coach Dominic Casey was named Manager of the Year after steering his fellow Skibbereen men Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy to dominance at both the European Championships and the Tokyo Olympics.
Tokyo Paralympians Katie George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal were voted Team of the Year, meanwhile, after their best ever Games at which the tandem para-cycling stars won two golds and a silver. Dunlevy and McCrystal pushed their British equivalents all the way at the velodrome in the B 3,000m individual pursuit. On the roads of Mount Fuji, they retained the time trial title they won in Rio five years ago, before completing their triple medal haul in the B road race at the Fuji International Speedway.
Also this evening, double World cross country champion, Olympic silver medallist and soon-to-be-retiring Sport Ireland chief executive John Treacy was inducted to the RTÉ Sport Hall of Fame.
Micheál Schlingermann grew up in County Mayo and represented his County in the 2009 All Ireland minor football final at Croke Park against Armagh.
And your point is ….
heineken ….
Poor performance from City.
Alan Bennett was a big loss in defence but credit to Sligo came to Cork and got a unexpected win.
Huge game against Bohs on Friday night.
Grimes deserves a chance in goal now for City!
Schlingermann and cretaro are both Irish with Irish accents but they are not Irish names. Anyone know where those two families are originally from?
Cretaro’s father is from Italy
Cretaro is from Tubbercurry Co. Sligo and Schlingerman is from kiltimagh Co. Mayo
Would have been huge game if City had won. League gone now, need to concentrate on trying to finish 2nd and have a good cup run.Dundalk way ahead of City in class.Maybe 3 or 4 years time might start catching them but not at the moment. Hope there won,t be any “european hangover” excuses.Sligo better team tonight, 2 chances 2 goals. City 4 or 5 chances no goals. Bad sign when City fans begging for penalties; if you can;t score from open play its not saying much.Negative rant i know but its hard to be positve leaving the Cross tonight.
Jesus they’re only 6 points behind. They also have a game in hand. With Dundalk having European football to concentrate on possibly they’ll slip up in the league and maybe cork might seize their chance. But my point is…..the league is far from over.
I know Sean,but why should we have to wait for someone to “slip up” or be tired from european games? I,d like to see City win it on merit, fair scrap from start to finish.A bit old school maybe but thats my opinion. Even if they win it now, people will say its only because Dundalk had so many european games.
Srfc
That spoofer Caulfield is the one holding Cork back. He’s a non league manager. They have the players, but City will win nothing as long as he’s in charge.
What would any other manager do any differently?