Boxers, Adam Hession and Daina Moorehouse have been unveiled as Paris Olympic Scholars.
The Olympic Federation of Ireland has named the recipients of the Paris Scholarships, as preparations are already underway for the Summer Olympic Games in Paris, 2024.
A total pot of $350,000 will be distributed to Olympic hopefuls with the Women’s Hockey team awarded the team grant of $100,000. The fifteen individual grants to a total of $250,000 were awarded to athletes from twelve sports, including 2 from boxing.
The funding for the grants is primarily provided through a combination of International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Olympic Solidarity programme funding and OFI funding, split $250,000 from the IOC and the remaining $100,000 from the OFI to allow for a greater number of scholarship awards in Ireland.
The scholarships aim to support the athletes in their preparation for Paris, and to assist on the qualification journey. Athletes were nominated by the national federations and are representative of a mix of Olympians targeting a second Games, and athletes targeting an Olympic debut. Adam, of Monivea BC, and Daina, of Enniskerry BC, were nominated by the IABA.
21 year old Adam contests at featherweight. The Galway man is a 2 time elite champion. Adam won a silver medal at last year’s European U22 Championships in Italy and made his international senior debut at the 2021 World Championships in Bulgaria last October. He has been part of the IABA’s High Performance team since 2019 and captained the Irish team at the Men’s European Championships in Armenia in May.
20 year old southpaw, Daina, contests at flyweight. Daina, from Bray was a European Junior (U16) and Youth (U18) champion (in 2017) at 48kg before she’d even sat her Junior Cert. She captained the Irish team at the 2019 European Championships where she won bronze. In the European U22 Championships in March 2022 she lost to Croatia’s defending European champion and world silver medalist. Daina has won 11 Irish titles, including 2 Elites and has moved up weights to achieve her Olympic dream because 50kg is the lightest category in Paris 2024.
INDIVIDUAL GRANTS – $15,000 PER PERSON
| Rhasidat Adeleke | Athletics | Dublin |
| Nhat Nguyen | Badminton | Dublin |
| Adam Hession | Boxing | Galway |
| Daina Moorhouse | Boxing | Wicklow |
| Noel Hendrick | Canoeing | Kildare |
| Lara Gillespie | Cycling | Wicklow |
| Ciara McGing | Diving | London/Donegal/Mayo |
| Olivia Mehaffey | Golf | Armagh |
| Sive Brassil | Modern Pentathlon | Galway |
| Alison Bergin | Rowing | Cork |
| Jake McCarthy | Rowing | Cork |
| Aoife Hopkins | Sailing | Dublin |
| Eve McMahon | Sailing | Dublin |
| Paddy Johnston | Swimming | Down |
| Jack Woolley | Taekwondo | Dublin |
Making the announcement, Team Ireland Chef de Mission for the Paris Olympic Games, Gavin Noble, said,
“Thirty-five individual nominations were received from nineteen member sports for the Paris Scholarship fund, and today we are delighted to formally announce our Paris scholars and of course our support of the women’s hockey team. In the Tokyo cycle, twelve scholarships were awarded, and from those nine athletes qualified for the Games, with two finalists at the Tokyo Olympics. Naturally, we are aiming to build on those results. Through the support of the International Olympic Committee Solidarity Fund, and with the additional backing of Permanent TSB, Allianz and Deloitte, we are able to fund more athletes, to a higher level than ever before, and it is very much part of our performance and commercial strategy that we continue to move in this direction.”