Trio of top sporting stars for BBC Super Assembly

With the focus on women in sport, the panel will include Cliftonville player and captain of the Northern Ireland women’s football team, Marissa Callaghan; motorcycle racer Melissa Kennedy who became the first female rider to win an Irish National Road Race earlier this year and Katie Mullan who captained the Ireland women’s hockey team to an historic silver medal at last year’s World Cup in London.

Hosted by BBC Sport NI presenter and former Northern Ireland international Nicola McCarthy the panel will be speaking with an invited audience of pupils from local schools at Shankill Leisure Centre today.

The panel will be tackling questions from the audience and talking about a range of themes related to women in sport including: gender imbalance in sport, the sacrifices they’ve made, how they knew they were good enough to succeed in elite sport, dealing with the physicality, injuries and setbacks in sport and what happens when their current careers come to an end.

BBC Make It: Super Assembly is a series of inspirational talks by well-known figures for schools throughout Northern Ireland. These talks have, to date, featured boxer Carl Frampton, football’s David Jeffrey, BBC Radio Ulster’s Stephen Nolan and Ulster Rugby captain Rory Best.

Super Assembly is part of BBC Northern Ireland’s Make It campaign focusing on the educational attainment gap in Northern Ireland. This multi-platform initiative aims to help tackle the educational and aspirational needs of 16-24 year olds in Northern Ireland.

With a wide range of activities and content across all platforms Make It aims to raise awareness of the educational attainment gap and its wider impact on society and our economy, while providing opportunities for discussion and debate both on and off the air.

For more information and to watch the panel discussion live from the Shankill Leisure Centre at 2pm today visit the website: bbc.co.uk/makeit You can also watch it live on the BBC Northern Ireland Facebook page and it will be available to watch back on the BBC iPlayer.

KM2