This article is from page 18 of the 2012-05-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 18 JPG
THE SHANNON region was touted as being ideally located to cash in on traffic and business associated with the 2012 London Olympics, but it never happened.
Until last Saturday that is, when Shannon Airport that famously welcomed home Ronnie Delany from Melbourne with his Olympic gold in 1956 and saw off Cassius Clay with his Olympic gold that he won in Rome in 1960 was finally touched by London 2012.
It was all thanks to the surprise pit-stop made in Shannon by the Olympic torch on Friday, over a month ahead of schedule when it will be carried from Belfast to Dublin en route to London by among others, Paul McGrath, Michael Carruth and Rory McIlroy.
But, in ahead of all these famous names was Airport Duty Manager Natasha Naughton-O’Keeffe after the British Airways flight BA2036 was forced to divert to Shannon for re-fuelling.
“I certainly wasn’t expecting to be holding the Olympic torch when I came into work this afternoon but it’s certainly made the evening shift a lot easier,” she said.
“The whole world will be looking at the Olympic torch on the opening night of the games in July and I’ll be able to say I carried it too,” said Ms Naughton-O’Keeffe who hails from Gort.
“It’s a great honour to have been the first place in Ireland to have the Olympic torch this year. I know it’s scheduled to come to Ireland in June and there’s a lot of effort going into organising its visit but we can always say we had it first in Shannon.
“We have had many firsts here since the airport was established and this is definitely right up there,” she added.
The BA flight was one of two forced to divert to Shannon to take on extra fuel after air traffic control issues in Canada forced them to take longer routes than anticipated. The torch was being brought to England by Mr Piers Skinner, director of customer management for Coca-Cola.
The arrival of the Olympic Torch today is in keeping with a long history of firsts at Shannon Airport, including being the birthplace of ‘duty free’ airport retailing, Irish coffee and, more recently, the first airport outside the Americas to get US preclearance services in 2009.
The torch was transferred from the BA flight to complete it journey to London on a scheduled ShannonHeathrow flight on Friday evening.