Another feather in the coaching cap of Teresa McDaid

Teresa McDaid will earn another feather in her coaching cap this weekend when she travels to the Great Edinburgh Cross Country run as a coach with the European Athletics team.

It’s the first time that an Irish coach has been selected for the European team and Teresa will be joined at the event by Fionnuala McCormack who is the only Irish runner taking part.

The Great Edinburgh Cross Country event sees runners representing Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Team Europe and the USA.

There are four races in total, junior men and junior women, and senior men and senior women.

Teresa was part of the Irish management team at the European Cross Country Championships in Italy in December and the Letterkenny AC member is really excited ahead of this weekend.

“It came totally out of the blue, to be honest,” she said.

“I delighted and excited and really looking forward to it.

“It’s an entirely new departure for me. We’ll travel over on Friday and we’ll begin preparations with a team meeting. It’ll be pretty intense. That’s the way it is with cross-country running as opposed to track and field.

“But as coach, my job will be to ensure there’s a high performance environment and to help facilitate the athletes with that environment so that they can compete as best they can.”

McDaid is an experienced coach, but this weekend’s event will serve up some very new challenges.

“I’ll  be working with athletes that I’ve never met before, and obviously there’s the language barrier as well,” she said.

“But it’s a fantastic opportunity, and I’m thrilled to be involved.”