World Tug o' War Championships for Letterkenny?
Donegal and Letterkenny could be in line to host the 2014 World Indoor Tug o' War Championships.
An application on behalf of Donegal has been accepted by the Irish Tug o' War Federation and has been forwarded to the Tug o' War International Federation, who will make a decision on the venue for the championships at their annual congress in April.
The idea of hosting the games in Letterkenny is being driven by two of the county's best known Tug o' War enthusiastics, Danny McGonagle from Inishowen and Donal Ward from Glenties, who is attached to the Lakehill Tug o' War Club in Knockmore, Co Mayo.
"Danny is the main driver and is the man that came up with the idea," Donal Ward told the Donegal Democrat.
"The Irish Federation have backed our bid and have made an application to the International Federation to host the games in Letterkenny. We are currently in the planning stage of putting together a short DVD on Letterkenny and the Aura Leisure Centre, which is our proposed venue to support the application.
"The decision will be made at the Congress in April in England, and from what I gather at the moment two other countries, the Netherlands and Japan, have also applied. The World Championships is held every two years and is in Italy this year. It will be held next month in fact - they are run every year in February - and the 2012 championships are in Scotland so we have applied to host the 2014 championships," said Donal.
"If we are successful it will bring at least 1,000 competitors to Letterkenny, mostly from around Europe and China, and will cost fair amount of money to run. First of all we will have pay 6,500 sterling for a permit and it will also include accommodating up to 40 officials but we will be hopeful we will get the backing of the other clubs in Donegal and the local business community. But we will cross that bridge when we come to it. The first objective is to secure the championships."
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Monday 21 May 2012
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