Plenty of ups and downs at All Ireland Dancing Championships

The audience at the All Ireland Dancing Championships gasped as two girls danced a reel onstage. The musicians stopped playing. A dancer was down.

Three girls watching from the sidelines clapped their hands over their mouths. “Oh no, her ankle,” one of them said. The dancer had landed badly after a jump and had to be carried offstage.

It was not the only time this would happen during the weeklong competition at the Citywest conference centre in Dublin which ends today. Boys and girls under 12 competed yesterday.

“You can trip over your foot or your lace might come undone. Or you’ll fall and land wrong on your ankle. At a competition in Boston, a girl fell on her ankle and it, like, snapped,” said one of the three, Niamh O’Connell (12) from London.

“It’s dangerous. I’ve got a lump in my knee from dancing so hard. I’ve pulled a tendon,” said Chrissy Murray (11), also from London, to nods of agreement from her cohort.

“My sister’s a physio, so I get her to pop me back into the joint,” said the third, Giselle St Ledger (12), another Londoner.

The girls have been dancing since they were three. In order to get to this elite level of competition, they train for three hours a day at least four days a week, year-round.

Des Bailey and Cheryl Nolan, teachers at the Nolan-Bailey School of Irish Dancing in Ballina, Co Mayo, know the risks. Bailey toured with the original cast of Lord of the Dance, and Nolan toured with Riverdance.

“Most injuries would be sprains, the odd calf tear, broken ankles, Achilles sometimes. There’s not much protection in the footwear,” said Nolan.

Injuries are a bit less common now because of the emphasis on stretching and core strength.

About a third of this week’s competitors will qualify for the World Championships in Montreal in April 2015.