Leevale coach, Donie Walsh is the Cork City Sports Athletics Person of the Month Award for May.   Donie has been selected to travel to Rio as the Athletics Ireland endurance coach joining two of his athletes Lizzie Lee and Michelle Finn will be competing in the marathon & 3000m steeplechase respectively.

Donie will return to the olympics a mere 44 years after he competed in the marathon in Munich in 1972 .

Donie has been at the core of Irish athletics for most of his life. He earned a scholarship to Villanova University in the USA, and competed in several NCAA championships.

His greatest successes came in the early 1970s, when he won five 10000m National Championships on the track in six years, ran the marathon for Ireland in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, and won numerous other cross country and track & field titles. He was a scoring member of the Irish team that took silver in the World Cross Country Championships in 1979, on the day that John Treacy won the race for the second time.

His contribution to athletics in Cork is immense and he is a worthy recipient of the Cork City Sports Athletics Person Of The Month award. Unfortunately due to an accident Donie was unable to attend the awards in person. The award was accepted on his behalf by his two sons Michael & Mark Walsh,