FAMILIES ARE FIGHTING FIT

Nina Carberry joins the TV coaches on the new series of Ireland’s Fittest Family, and this year’s gruelling events are the toughest yet

Jockey Nina Carberry is the new coach on the block as Ireland’s Fittest Family returns tonight for its tenth series. She joins presenter Mairead Ronan and fellow coaches Davy Fitzgerald, Anna Geary and Donncha O’Callaghan to push the families to their limits and over the finish line for the coveted title and €15,000.

Anna is feeling smug after last year’s victory, as the first coach in Fittest Family history to win three times, but Davy, who crashed out early last year, is on a mission to save face.

This is the first time Ireland’s Fittest Family has filmed the heats in a new location — the beautiful Rathbeggan Lakes in Co Meath — with the rest of the series returning to Hell and Back in Kilruddery, Co Wicklow. At the foothills of the Wicklow mountains with muddy swamps, lakes and forests, it is the perfect location to put the families through their paces.

In tonight’s first episode, Anna’s Fitzsimons from Co Wicklow, Donncha’s Gallaghers from Co Laois, Nina’s Finnegans from Co Meath, and Davy’s Dorans from Co Wexford take on The Lake, all battling it out for two places at the next round of the competition at The Forest.

The families must each take on a new event, High and Dry. One member of each family must take to the skies and hang on to two gymnastic rings, suspended from a crane high above the icy waters of the lake, while the rest of the family run shuttles across slippery pontoons floating on the water.

The most runs completed wins, and the clock stops when the family member on the rings loses their grip and plunges into the lake.

The four families then have their stamina tested in another new event, Raft Rage. The teams must pull themselves across the lake using a rope and a raft — but only two can be on the raft at once in a real test of grit and stamina.

■ Ireland’s Fittest Family is on RTÉ One at 6.30pm tonight.