Kieran McCarthy MLA said: “The Minister must urgently take over the responsibility to attract teams and try and turn this around. We desperately need a positive outcome on this and he must try and revive these efforts. There was so much hype and hope that we would be able to attract athletes to train here ahead of the London Olympics. It’s a disgrace that the powers that be have not even been able to get one team to commit to training here so far.
“The 2012 Olympics hold massive potential for Northern Ireland. We have great facilities and would be an excellent destination for athletes. This is one of the biggest, if not the biggest sporting event on earth and for Northern Ireland to miss out so spectacularly would be deeply worrying. I am very angry that Sport NI has talked Northern Ireland down so much. Something needs to be done to address their negative attitude.
“The Minister, Nelson McCausland, needs to take on the role of trying to attract teams to train here. He needs to front up on this one. The public will be extremely disappointed if this ends in failure.”
ENDS