Teenager Anabelle Zurbay has been selected for the alpine skiing events, competing in both slalom and giant slalom, with the latter her preferred discipline.<\/p>\n
Based in Colorado, Zurbay is the youngest member of the Irish team and will make history as the youngest Irish athlete ever to compete in Olympic alpine skiing, having turned 17 last December. She qualifies for Ireland through her maternal grandmother, who is from Rosemount, outside Moate.<\/p>\n
Ben Lynch will represent Ireland in the freestyle skiing halfpipe. The Dublin-born athlete moved to Vancouver with his family at the age of three, where he was introduced to skiing.<\/p>\n
While several members of his family went on to enjoy success in rowing, Lynch gravitated towards the slopes and will make his Olympic debut in Italy. He will be based in Livigno for the duration of the Games.<\/p>\n
Cormac Comerford has also been named on the team and will compete in alpine skiing, with slalom his favoured event.<\/p>\n
The Dublin native first developed his skills at the Kilternan dry slopes and, like Lynch, will be competing at his first Olympic Games. A graduate of DIT, Comerford works as a mechanical engineer during the off-season and spends the winter months travelling across Europe to train and compete. He will race in the Bormio area.<\/p>\n
Completing the team is Thomas Maloney Westgard, the most experienced member of the squad, who will contest his third Winter Olympics. In doing so, he will become only the second Irishman to compete at three Winter Games.<\/p>\n
Westgard competes in cross-country skiing, with the 50km event his preferred race. Born on the Norwegian island of Leka to a Galway mother and Norwegian father, the 30-year-old has enjoyed a strong run of form in recent seasons and now races for professional outfit Team Aker D\u00e6hlie.<\/p>\n
He will compete in Predazzo, in the Val di Fiemme region.<\/p>\n
Irish in action:<\/p>\n
Feb 6: Opening Ceremony \u2013 Milano (Irish in the Livigno, Cortina and Predazzo clusters)<\/p>\n
Feb 7: Cormac Comerford \u2013 Downhill (Alpine Skiing), Bormio<\/p>\n
Feb 8: Thomas Maloney Westg\u00e5rd \u2013 10km + 10km Skiathlon (Cross Country), Predazzo<\/p>\n
Feb 11: Cormac Comerford \u2013 Super-G (Alpine Skiing), Bormio<\/p>\n
Feb 13: Thomas Maloney Westg\u00e5rd \u2013 10km Free (Cross Country), Predazzo<\/p>\n
Feb 14: Cormac Comerford \u2013 Giant Slalom Run 1 & 2 (Alpine Skiing), Bormio<\/p>\n
Feb 15: Anabelle Zurbay \u2013 Giant Slalom Run 1 & 2 (Alpine Skiing), Cortina<\/p>\n
Feb 16: Cormac Comerford \u2013 Slalom Run 1 & 2 (Alpine Skiing), Bormio<\/p>\n
Feb 18: Anabelle Zurbay \u2013 Slalom Run 1 & 2 (Alpine Skiing), Cortina<\/p>\n
Feb 19: Ben Lynch \u2013 Halfpipe Qualification (Freestyle Skiing), Livigno<\/p>\n
Feb 20: Ben Lynch \u2013 Halfpipe Final (Freestyle Skiing), Livigno<\/p>\n
Feb 21: Thomas Maloney Westg\u00e5rd \u2013 50km Classic (Cross Country), Predazzo<\/p>\n
Feb 22: Closing Ceremony \u2013 Verona (All athletes)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teenager Anabelle Zurbay has been selected for the alpine skiing events, competing in both slalom and giant slalom,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,23196],"class_list":["post-270509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-winter-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}