Tom Barr is delighted partner Kelly McGrory is also competing at Paris Olympics

Tom Barr is delighted for this last one hurrah at Olympic level will be alongside his partner of seven years, Kelly McGrory.

Ireland's athletics team will travel to Fontainebleau today to their holding camp ahead of the Paris Games, and before travelling on to the Olympic Village on July 29.

For Barr, it is his third Olympics and for Kelly, who is part of the same 4x400m mixed relay squad as her partner and also on the 4x400m women's relay team, it is her first.

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"It's where we both have been aiming for and if one of us hadn't made it, not that we would be bitter, but it would have been difficult to say 'goodbye, good luck' - not that we would hold it against each other," said Barr.

"It's going to be so special, to be at an Olympics. It's a huge experience, it's something that is so, so special and to be able to share it and make core memories together at these championships is going to be unbelievable.

"It adds just a whole new level of depth to an Olympics - to share it with your significant other like that."

Ireland’s Kelly McGrory in the 400m hurdles heats at the 2024 European Athletics Championships at the Stadio Olimpico
(Image: ©INPHO/Morgan Treacy)

The Waterford man is ecstatic that Donegal's Kelly has progressed to the level that got her on the relay teams. "To see the level that Kelly has cone from, Olympics was never on her radar," said Barr.

"To be honest at this point we've not got really excited - it's all about logistics. World relays, Europeans, nationals - it's been busy, busy, busy, but now that we are here collecting the kit, the excitement is starting to build and all the buzz around it."

However the couple don't expect to make it to the opening ceremony on the Seine next Friday. "No, it doesn’t look like it," Barr lamented. "I’d love to go because it looks like an amazing spectacle.

"But at the same time we’re here to perform, we’re here to do a job and if that means missing the opening ceremony and standing on our feet for four or five hours because its not just the half-hour that you’re out on the parade it’s the time leading into it.

"It’s getting a bus into the stadium, its hanging around after, its all of that stuff that goes with it. So, it can be a tiring day. So, if it’s decided that we’re not going to go, I’m all good because we want to be able to make sure that we’re in tip-top shape by the time it comes to August 2nd."

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