From the NTSA website:
Irish Sports Council Carding Announcement
Written by Mark Dennehy
Thursday, 01 March 2007The Irish Sports Council has announced the Carding Grant allocations for 2007. Four junior athletes in the NTSA have successfully qualified for carding, receiving €12000 in total to assist in their preparation, training and participation in National and International matches.
We would like to thank everyone concerned with this process for their contributions, which will enable these junior athletes to progress to higher levels of achievement in the sport, and we wish to congratulate Damien, Susan, Paula and Elizabeth on the hard work it has taken from them to qualify for these grants.
Not bad guys, not bad at all. That should help cover a match or two.
For those that don’t know, the NTSA is the least-well-funded Olympic National Governing Body in the state, so these carding grants which go directly to the athlete to cover training and other costs are vital and necessary. They’re also not easy enough to get – right now they act more as a reward for hard training than as a support to aid further training. However, it’s about €3000 better than nothing…