Tyrone trio heading for the MCG…virtually

THREE Tyrone men will join forces with 27 fellow Ireland 
internationals to take part in AFL Europe’s ‘Race to the MCG’!

Newtownstewart natives, Kevin McSorley and Benny McDevitt, along with Victoria Bridge’s Kyle Devine will join forces to try to get Ireland from London to the MCG in Melbourne first, ahead of their rivals from all across Europe.

On June 15th, men’s and women’s national teams from around Europe – Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, Wales and the Umpires – will get their quests underway.

Fortunately for the local trio, they don’t actually have to walk the 
entire distance from London to Australia because this is a virtual 
race that will be done by combining the participants daily runs and 
walks recorded on Strava to get them from zero to 16,900 kilometres 
over the coming weeks.

“Even with a team of 30 that’s over 500 kilometres we’ll have to 
cover, so there will be nothing else but running for the foreseeable 
future!,” exclaimed AFL Ireland president, McSorley, who admits that there will be a lot of honesty and trust required by all involved.

He continued: “We’re using Strava, but if you have a Garmin or a 
Fitbit, or whatever, and you can prove you’ve done what you’ve said 
you’ve done then that will be allowed, but there’s going to have to be 
a lot of trust because you could go out and drive the car!

“Benny said to me the other night, because I don’t use Strava, he went for a run one day using it and it said he ran 250 kilometres! So I 
don’t know how it’s going to work exactly, but they will have to go on 
an honesty policy.”

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