21 new athletes added to the ambassador line-up
The Olympic Federation of Ireland is delighted to announce the addition of twenty-one new Olympic and Paralympic athletes to the Dare to Believe Olympic Schools Programme, bringing the total number of athlete ambassadors to forty-four across fifteen sports, including Olympic Champions and medallists. This milestone coincides with Allianz Ireland becoming the official sponsor of the programme, reinforcing its commitment to inspiring the next generation through the power of sport.
With a near-equal gender balance, there are now twenty-one female and twenty-three male ambassadors sharing their stories with and inspiring school children around Ireland. The programme centres on the Olympic values, and since its launch in 2019, students have enjoyed, not only athlete visits, but the wider activations of the programme, such as the Road to Paris, Olympic Movement Breaks and the hugely popular Olympian Live! events.
Following on from yesterday’s reveal of Allianz as the top sponsor of Team Ireland, the sponsorship of Allianz of the Dare to Believe programme supports their goal of keeping young people in sport, and their #StoptheDrop campaign. In 2024, 131,636 students benefited from the Dare to Believe programme, across 3,548 schools. This incorporated 132 Olympic ambassador school and club visits, with 82% of the schools being DEIS schools. The Olympian Live! Webinars were reached by 59,447 children across primary and secondary schools.
Speaking about the impact of the programme on the community from a school visit to Mullingar Educate Together National School, Olympic boxer Grainne Walsh, who has has been a Dare to Believe ambassador since 2019, said: “I’ve been a Dare to Believe ambassador since day one, and my journey has grown so much since then. I love visiting the schools to inspire kids because I know how much I would have valued this at their age.
“It’s all about paving the way for the next generation, passing the baton, and showing them that anything is possible with belief and hard work. Honestly, I get as much from these visits as the kids do. I leave every school feeling fully of positivity and ready to smash my next challenge, so it works both ways.
“I try to share with the students that setbacks happen, I’ve had my fair share of them, but you have to find a way of getting over them, and believing in yourself. When you do that, success is all the sweeter.”
Programme coordinators Roisin Jones and Roisin McGettigan are looking forward to launching into a new year of school visits. They said: “We are delighted to announce 21 new Dare to Believe ambassadors today, to join some of our more seasoned ones. It’s really exciting to see how much this programme has evolved, and we are very grateful for the support of Allianz, whose values align so closely with ours around the value of sport to young people.
“We are looking forward to what the future holds. We know from research that having sporting role models positively impacts activity levels for children, and we have great Olympic and Paralympic ambassadors on our programme.”
Dare to Believe new ambassadors
Ronan Byrne (rowing)
Victoria Catterson (swimming)
Lily Cooke (luge)
Ross Corrigan (rowing)
Andrew Coscoran (athletics)
Tim Cross (hockey)
Eric Favors (athletics)
Stacey Flood (rugby 7s)
Jude Gallagher (boxing)
Darragh Greene (swimming)
Noel Hendrick (canoeing)
Natalie Long (rowing)
Daire Lynch (rowing)
Jack Marley (boxing)
Bryan Mollen (rugby 7s)
Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe (rugby 7s)
Fintan McCarthy (rowing)
Sophie Noble (badminton)
Katie O’Brien (para-rowing)
Tiarnan O’Donnell (para-rowing)
Nicola Tuthill (athletics)
Registration for the Dare to Believe programme is free of charge and all details can be found on www.daretobelieve.ie for both primary and secondary curriculums.
-ENDS-
Further Information
Heather Boyle, OFI Head of Communications
heather@olympicsport.ie +353 (0)87 337 1954
Programme Details
Sponsored by Allianz Ireland and developed with the support of the IOC Olympic Solidarity Fund, the Olympic Federation of Ireland schools programme aims to inspire the young people of Ireland to ‘Dare to Believe’ in themselves through an interactive curriculum that explores the Olympic Values using Team Ireland role models to bring the messages to life. As it moves into its third phase, thirty-one athlete ambassadors will visit schools across Ireland telling their stories of resilience and teaching students how to set goals, adopt healthy lifestyles through sport, and how sport can be used as a positive societal tool. Resource packs that cover the Olympic Values of Respect & Equality, Healthy Mind & Body, Joy of Effort and Striving for Excellence are sent to schools to prepare for the Dare to Believe Ambassador’s visit. All materials are user-friendly, completely free and are developed in line with the Irish schools curriculum strands for teachers.
