James wins bronze in Krakow

James Nolan has won a bronze medal in his first event at the 8th European Transplant & Dialysis Championship in Krakow, in the Summer Bi-athlon event, writes Gwen O'Donoghue

A veteran to transplant sport, James has competed in various European and World Transplant Competitions since receiving his kidney transplant from his sister Catherine 27 years ago. James, who has raised in excess of over €1.3 million for kidney research, was competing in a new transplant sport event, which involves running and shooting, and is an adaption of the Winter Biathlon where running replaces skiing.

After phoning his sister to give her the good news, James paid tribute to Tommy O'Brien from the Harbour House Gun Club and his athletics coach Kevin Walker for training him for the Games. He competes in Golf tomorrow and track and direld later in the week.

Every athlete at the Games will either have already received a kidney, liver, heart, lung, pancreas or bone marrow transplant or are on dialysis. There are 34 members of Transplant Team Ireland competing in the European event and they range in age from 16 to 76.

Athletes are competing in badminton, tennis, cycling, darts, golf, petanque, swimming, table tennis, ten pin bowling, tennis, volleyball, mini-marathon, track and field and the new biathlon event.