The Letterkenny woman feeding Ireland's Olympic hopefuls

Letterkenny native Sharon Madigan is playing a key role for the Irish Olympians in Paris.

Professor Madigan is the science lead with Team Ireland and oversees nutrition.

She is the eldest daughter of Jim and Mary Madigan from Ramelton Road and has worked very closely with many Irish sports teams and groups.

There are 133 Irish sportspeople competing in Paris, giving a wide variety of dietary needs and wants.

“Some of the rowers would be at one extreme, particularly when they're training,” she says.

“If you have a 6'5” rower who is 100kgs, you're talking in the region of 7-10,000 calories a day. Then you might have a 50kgs boxer or judoka, they have to deal with scales first to make weight and they have a performance focus too.”

Team Ireland loaded up massively on porridge before departing for Paris.

“Porridge is something that the French really don’t do very well, or don’t do at all,” Professor Madigan says. “It's really funny, before they hosted a Rugby World Cup in France, they didn't know at all how to make porridge and one of my colleagues actually made them a video.”

One of the restaurant areas in the Olympic Village can cater for up to 3,000 people at the one time and is split into a variety of catering options.

“The size and the scale is just huge,” she says.

As well as porridge oats, Professor Madigan and her team stocked up on slushies.

“One of the things we very much focus on is the preparation of athletes to compete in the heat,” she says.

“If you can cool those athletes down relatively quickly, you can get a better endurance return. Also, the slushie contains water and carbohydrates so you're killing multiple birds with one stone.”

After obtaining a Biological Science degree from Coleraine and a Masters in Nutrition and Dietetics in Southampton, she worked in the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust.

She completed a PhD in Jordanstown in Nutrition Education and has been working with Sport Ireland since 2010.