Galway gets behind its own Winter Olympian

It reads like a storyline from a Marian Keyes novel: a nurse from Dunmore meets a Norwegian dairy farmer on a sun holiday in the Canary Islands. They fall in love, marry, settle down on a tiny island in Norway and have five children, one of whom goes on to represent Ireland at the Winter Olympic Games in South Korea.

Except this is not chick-lit fantasy; this is the life of Celia Maloney, whose son, Thomas is the first competitor with strong Galway connections to compete in the Winter Olympics.

From Kiltevna, Celia left Dunmore 32 years ago, and moved to the homeland of her Norwegian husband Ova.

Thomas Maloney Westgaard is the eldest of their five children who all grew up on the tiny island of Leka. It has 600 inhabitants and Celia likens it “to living on the Aran Islands.”

Norwegian-born Thomas, who qualifies for Ireland through his North Galway mother, made his Olympic debut on Sunday. He said he was “extremely proud” after finishing in 60th place in the 30-kilometre biathlon event in Pyeonchang, the 20-year-old said despite not feeling 100 per cent

“It’s a big honour. I dreamed about this since I was ten so this was a big day for me,” he said.

On Tuesday, Thomas, the sole cross-country skier on the Irish team, finished 62rd in the 1.4km Cross Country Sprint event. Having struggled two days earlier, his cross-country time of three minutes 29.6 seconds improved his overall ranking by eight places. “I’m very happy with that, it’s one of the best sprints I’ve done this season so I have to be satisfied with that,” he said.

Sprint isn’t his best discipline and Thomas prefers longer races. He competes in the 15k freestyle this Friday (starts at 6am Irish time) and again on Saturday week.

One of Celia’s brothers, Michael and his wife Betsy, who live in Roy, Dunmore, and two of their children, Lisa and James, travelled to South Korea to cheer Thomas on at the games.

Another brother, Tommy Joe Maloney, who lives at the family farm in Kiltevna, and a Dublin-based sister, Margaret, as well as cousins and extended relations and friends were following his progress from home.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.