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Riders from across the UK and Ireland to carry Olympic torch


  • Riders from across the UK and Ireland will join Jane Holderness-Roddam as official Olympic torchbearers for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

    Former Olympic eventer Jane – who won team gold in Mexico in 1968 – will carry the torch in Shurdington, Glos, on 23 May (news, 29 March).

    Other equestrians carrying the torch include 56-year-old Peggy Douglas who will carry the flame through Brixton, Devon, on 20 May.

    Peggy received the MBE last year for services to charity. She was the founder of Erm Valley RDA group 30 years ago.

    Harry Humfrey, who represented Britain on the pony team at the FEI European Championships at Bishop Burton last year, will also carry the torch.

    The 16-year-old has been chosen to carry the Olympic torch through Newport, Pembrokeshire, on 27 May.

    73-year-old Mo Shearing – a Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA) instructor on the Isle of Man for 40 years, will carry the flame on 2 June.

    Twelve-year-old Darrell Harpur, a keen rider from Derry, who has twice taken part in the RDA national championships, will do the duty on 3 June.

    Irish modern pentathlete and Greenwich hopeful Natalya Coyle will bear the torch in Dublin on 6 June.

    And Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson, 27, of the Royal Horse Artillery, who lost both legs in Afghanistan in 2007, will carry the flame in Pontefract on 25 June.

    Hannah Gallaher, 12, a member of the Puckeridge Hunt Western branch of the Pony Club, will be running with the torch in St Albans, Herts on Sunday 8 July.

    Sister Mary Joy Langdon, founder of London’s Wormwood Scrubs Pony Centre, will carry it through Hounslow, West London, on 24 July.

    Sister Mary Joy told H&H: “I feel very honoured and very excited.”

    This news story was first published in the current issue of H&H (19 April 2012)

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