Newport family claim quarter final place in Fittest Family show
A superb performance in atrocious weather conditions has won a place in the quarter finals of the challenging Ireland's Fittest Family 2021 contest for a local family.
Newport's Allen family came through in style from the second programme in the 2021 contest, screened on RTÉ 1 last Sunday evening, after leading the contestants to qualify for a coveted place in the quarter finals.
They were competing against the Codys (Kilkenny), the Mileys (Kildare) and the O'Neills (Meath) in the gruelling tests at the competition venue in Co Wicklow. The only team from Tipperary selected for the 2021 contest, Ticey Allen, who farms full time at Killeen, Newport, was accompanied by Tom, James and Ruth Allen.
In the first test, ‘Back Against the Wall’ Ticey scored the second highest personal performance of the evening, enduring the challenging test for almost nine minutes, which made a major contribution to the team overall aggregate time of 22 mins and 25 secs, the second highest of the four teams, which comfortably avoided the first elimination and qualified them for the major multi-obstacle course.
In lashing rain and gale force wind, which made for appalling conditions on the day, the Allens were first home over the course to become the leading team of the evening and qualify for the quarter final.
The team coach is former rugby star, Donnacha O'Callaghan and the team comprises of Ticey, a full-time farmer, who took up running in his 40s and has completed marathons and elite adventure races; James (17) who is going into Leaving Cert, and is an avid rugby and handball player, having got to the All-Ireland hurdle final at the Community Games when U10 years; Tom (15) a Junior Cert student and all-round team sports player of rugby, hurling, football and Munster Schools Games shot put finalist and Ruth (19) a student of Radiography at UCD who is also a 100m and 200m County Champion placed at Munster level and competed at All-Ireland level in sprinting as well as being a keen soccer and camogie player.
This year’s series of Ireland’s Fittest Family was filmed over the course during three weeks last August at the new hub at Hell & Back in Kilruddery, Co Wicklow. Set across acres of land at the foothills of the Wicklow mountains, this was the perfect location to put the families through some very tough paces.
The participating teams and their coaches are legally bound to remain tight lipped on how they performed prior to the screening of the programme, which heightened the local anxiety to watch the programme on Sunday evening.
Congratulations to the Allens on a superb performance under such difficult conditions comprising of appalling weather conditions couple with the most challenging course and good luck in the forthcoming quarter finals.