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IRELAND’S FIRST EVER Olympic medalist in gymnastics, Rhys McClenaghan, is among the latest list of famous faces confirmed for the upcoming season of Dancing With The Stars.
The Co Down athlete is a decorated gymnast and scooped back-to-back gold in the pommel horse at the 2022 and 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.
He then followed this up with a magnificent Olympic gold at the Paris Games in August.
McClenaghan was also named RTÉ’s Sportsperson of the Year in 2023.
He said he’s “thrilled to take on this new challenge” and is “looking forward to bringing some gymnastics skills to the dance floor”.
McClenaghan is already looking forward to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, but said he is approaching his training for the 2025 competition year differently.
“I took some time to travel, and as I begin my first training block for the LA Games, I will also have some fun figuring out how to dance,” said McClenaghan.
“Hopefully, with the guidance of my pro dance partner, I can bring some of my pommel horse flair to the dance floor, too,” he added.
The announcement was made on The Late Late Show and also confirmed for the latest season of Dancing With The Stars was Ireland AM presenter Elaine Crowley, chef Kevin Dundon, TikTok star Kayleigh Trappe, and Kin actress Yasmin Seky.
They were joined by dancer and two-time winner of the series Karen Byrne, who was recently announced as the newest judge to join the Dancing With The Stars panel.
Earlier this week, singer-songwriter Mickey Joe Harte, Irish taekwondo Olympian Jack Woolley, comedian Gearóid Farrelly, Mrs. Brown’s Boys actor Danny O’Carroll and former Miss Universe Ireland, Aishah Akorede were revealed as the first five contestants for the upcoming series.
The eleventh and final name will be revealed on Sunday morning.
The show will air on Sunday evening from early next year and will see the 11 famous figures team up with a professional dancer to perform a live routine every week.
Each celebrity couple will be scored by an expert panel of four judges and the viewing public at home, with the winning couple claiming the glitter ball trophy at the end of the series.
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I think we should hold onto cash for the foreseeable future.
@brendan hackett: why?
@Pat Hazzard: Because I like the pretty colours.
Seriously Pat!?
@brendan hackett: ATMs are just computers too…
@brendan hackett: I couldn’t tell you the last time I had cash in my pocket or wallet, definitely a few years ago now. Getting on just fine to be honest, never give it a second thought.
@brendan hackett:
I used to count cash as part of my job and the smell off my hands afterwards was horrendous. Cash is completely filthy. I’ll stick to my card.
@Paul O Connor: gives a whole new meaning to ‘filthy lucre’…
@Paul O Connor: children must really love you when trick or treating ar holloweb
Seems brendan’s comment has gone over the head of the normal thinking people….
@Philip Murphy: Ar holloweb. Ooh arr… Been hollowebbing many’s the year …
@brendan hackett: Horrible stuff. Covered in faeces and cocaine…… Thank god for cashless
@Mike Finnegan: filty rich
Cash , nokia and Internet cafe
It’s crazy that this update has gone through engineering, QA. Then has been deployed to demo, tested and later deployed to production and NO ONE managed to find it while testing. People will get fired quickly.
@Alex: likely someone sneaked in a last minute change that wasn’t properly tested.
This begs the question “has our dependence on virtual money and other IT systems gone too far?” Recently our local shopping center lost power and closed as none of the registers would work. If the internet went down we could not validate payment, and the list goes on.
@Niall O’Cofaigh: I think the biggest issue there would be the power going down.
How easy it seems to cause chaos around the word ….putin and Kim are watching this with much interest…
@David Cotter: Those pesky kids and their street slang
Computer says No…
Ireland urged to do more to support underage treatment seekers subject to Scoliosis suffering day in day out under the guise of decades of faux promises.
@Padraic O’ Sullivan: precisely what was announced yesterday with state paying for treatment overseas
@Pat Hazzard: link please Pat. Cheers
I hope it is safe to pay for things online. Safety could be compromised now.
@Sean Money: why would safety be compromised?
@Jack Hayes: well the protection was unavailable for a period if time, which would provide opportunities for any dangerous cyber attack groups to take advantage. We should be weary of what happens next.
@Sean Money: Imagine there’ll be an increase is phising emails etc also. It’s all in a constant state of compromise anyway, I guess.
Sometimes a simple fix can be costly
@Paul1st: Is that Confucius or Wittgenstein?
@Jack Hayes: I remember the time of Y2K where opportunists made fortunes by pushing fear and all it took was a simple check and update of the computers BIOS that any child could do
@Paul1st: There is another possible one in 2038 when 32bit time values roll over.
I’m no computer whizz, but could they not stagger these updates just in case of an error. All the Best.
This is before we are even getting ready for AI looks like it’s already started to invade our brains via our business empires and hence our l private lives salaries ATM holidays basically our whole life and the world we live in not forgetting the journal.
With regard to cash it usually gets smelly when we amas it under the bed and continually counting same.
Y2K finally got us
In the end who will be held responsible for the monkey error of one line of code that hampers that hampers the globe its laughable
If you provide something excellent, people will never need it again. So really it’s good business to be middle of the road.
have your say