Edenderry's Declan wins gold and bronze at Transplant & Dialysis Games

Edenderry's Declan Guing has come home from his first trip to the European Transplant and Dialysis Games as part of Transplant Team Ireland with two medals. Declan won gold in the Ball Throw event on the last day of the Games and picked up a bronze medal earlier in the Bowling singles event. He's part of a team of 26 Irish men and women aged between 18 and 74 who took part in the seventh annual European Transplant and Dialysis Games held this year in Zagreb, Croatia. The team of athletes returned home last Saturday night after spending more than a week away from home competing for Ireland. Speaking after the Games Declan, who receives dialysis treatment at the Midlands Regional Hospital in Tullamore, said his first time as part of Transplant Team Ireland was great. "It's been absolutely brilliant," he said. "It's been one of the most fantastic events of my life. "All the people that I have met have been so good," he continued. "It's great to be with a group that understands what each other is going through. Colin, the team manager, and the rest of the team have been fantastic. It has been magical." Declan's two medals were joined by 48 others won by Transplant Team Ireland competitors during the Games, including a total of 14 gold medals. The result meant Transplant Team Ireland was placed third overall on the medals table out of 28 competing European countries. Competitors taking part in the Games that ran from August 18 until August 25 totalled more than 3,000. Every athlete competing had either already received a kidney, liver, heart, lung, pancrease or bone marrow transplant or is on dialysis. Declan competed as part of the Irish team as a dialysis patient. A virus when he was just married at the age of 27 destroyed his kidneys. A kidney transplant lasted him for 18 years, but for the last seven years he's been on dialysis as he awaits a new kidney.