Tipperary man receives European Athletics Excellence in Coaching award

Jeremy Lyons of Ballynonty, Tipperary was awarded with a European Athletics Excellence in Coaching Award at the National Athletics Awards.

Jeremy Lyons has been involved in athletics most of his life, from competing as a seven-year-old through to coaching Olympic and World Championship finalists.

He was introduced to the sport by his late father Jerry Lyons, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame by Tipperary Athletics in 2018 for his contribution to the sport both as a coach and administrator.

After a career as a 400 metres hurdles club athlete, Jeremy Lyons started coaching sprints and hurdles in 2009.

Over the following five years, he successfully coached athletes to European Under 23 and senior levels, with Craig Lynch, Brandon Arrey and Gerard O’Donnell becoming regular Irish senior internationals.

The wider training group also secured many national titles and medals.

He demonstrated a strong record in transitioning young athletes to senior international athletics, including Sophie Becker, who joined his group in 2016.

Becker steadily progressed from being a club-level athlete through the various levels of European athletics, Under 23 to senior, to eventually qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Cillin Greene followed a similar trajectory, and both were part of the Irish Mixed Relay team that made history when qualifying for the final in Tokyo, the first ever Irish relay team to do so.

In 2022, Jack Raftery followed the same path and joined Becker at the World Championship in Oregon, with the mixed 4 x 400 metres relay team also reaching the final.

This year both Sophie and Jack were members of the relay team that placed sixth in the World 4 x 400 metres Mixed Relay at the World Championships in Budapest.

That team also included Tipperary athlete Sharlene Mawdsley, from Newport.

Sophie Becker and Sharlene Mawdsley were also members of the women’s 4 x 400 metres relay team that produced an inspiring performance to make the final.

Jeremy Lyons believes in a co-coaching, collaborative model.

In 2019 he formed the Dublin Sprint group, inviting Aideen Sinnott and Gerard O’Donnell to join the coaching team with a focus on delivering an elite coaching and training environment.

Alongside his wife Sinéad, he also founded a grassroots juvenile athletics club in Clongriffin in 2019, giving the children of Dublin 13 an opportunity to experience and enjoy the sport of athletics and the potential to follow their very own path to the Olympic dream some day.