The Cork and Ireland athletics community has been plunged into a state of shock following the sudden passing of Ciar\u00e1n \u00d3 Lion\u00e1ird at the age of 38 with the Taoiseach among those who led the tributes today.<\/p>\n
The Cork native was found dead in Montreal, Canada on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
\u00d3 Lion\u00e1ird was considered by many to be of the best Irish middle distance runners of his generation.<\/p>\n
His many career highlights included representing Ireland in the 1500m at the 2012 London Olympics and securing a bronze medal in the men’s 3000m at the 2013 European Indoor championships in Gothenburg.<\/p>\n
\u00d3 Lion\u00e1ird also reached the 1500m final at the 2011 World Athletics Championships in Daegu.<\/p>\n
Growing up in Toonsbridge just outside Macroom, his running talents were clear from an early age, as he claimed national medals for West Muskerry AC.<\/p>\n
He later moved to another Cork club in Leevale AC, training under Der O\u2019Donovan and subsequently progressing into a world class junior athlete.<\/p>\n
An Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin told The Echo:<\/p>\n
\u201cI am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Ciar\u00e1n \u00d3 Lion\u00e1ird. A great sporting talent who represented Ireland at the Olympics and many international competitions. Ciar\u00e1n contributed so much to Irish athletics.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy thoughts and prayers are with Ciar\u00e1n\u2019s family and friends at this difficult time.”<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Leevale AC said:<\/p>\n
\u201cCiar\u00e1n was an exceptional athlete who represented his club, county and country with distinction, but he was equally valued as a wonderful clubman, teammate and friend.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis achievements on the track inspired many, while his humility, warmth and generosity left a lasting impression on all who knew him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cork and Ireland athletics community has been plunged into a state of shock following the sudden passing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[79,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-493205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cork-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493205","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=493205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}