Commonwealth Games: Crymble and Doyle to represent Team NI in Birmingham

Newtownards woman Hannah Crymble was formerly a gymnast

Hannah Crymble and Caroline Doyle will represent Team Northern Ireland in weightlifting at this summer's Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Crymble, 26, from Newtownards, was a gymnast in her youth but after taking up CrossFit changed to concentrate on weightlifting,

Doyle, 29, from Ballymena, is a former Ulster hockey schools' player but had to give up the sport because of injury.

The Commonwealth Games take place from 28 July to 8 August.

Team Lead Timmy Graham believes that now the qualification is confirmed the real work for building towards the games begins.

"It is nice to get the names out, we obviously knew for the last few weeks but now it is finalised, we have got Hannah and we have got Caroline, which is brilliant," said Graham.

"Both girls have different ambitions leading up to the games, Hannah is going to the Europeans (end of May in Albania) while Caroline has a nice strength phase ahead of her leading up to the games.

"Whenever it comes to the games, we'll be looking for the best possible totals between the snatch and the clean and jerk as they can."

"They are two new girls coming from the previous sports that they did."

Caroline Doyle is a former Ulster Schools' hockey player

"Caroline came to me just over two years ago and said she wanted to make the cut for the Commonwealth Games, she had already been doing the sport of weightlifting prior to that."

"We knew she had the potential to do really well, Hannah was the same she came over to weightlifting as well."

"The two girls had really good backgrounds in sports to be able to lead into weightlifting, they already had athletic capabilities, they are in a good position having already qualified so let's see how it goes in Birmingham."

Graham is hoping a home games will be advantageous to Team NI.

"It's only across the pond, even better for us we're on site at the NEC Hilton which is about 100 metres from the training hall and the competition is on site as well so we are very fortunate."

"In Gold Coast last time we had to travel on a bus for 25 minutes to get to the training hall and we were maybe out there three weeks prior to that but it's nice to just walk across from the hotel to the Birmingham NEC so that we'll be convenient for us."

Emma McQuaid achieved a fourth-place finish at the Gold Coast games four years ago and Graham is hoping Crymble and Doyle can achieve a podium finish in Birmingham.

"I hope so it will depend a lot on what or competitors are doing across the world and some results maybe go our way."

"There are maybe a bit of tactics I need to be doing in the warm-up room on the day of the competition, hopefully we can get up the rankings as high as we can."