Fans will see a host of radical changes when the new run begins on RTÉ1 on Sunday (November 2) at 6.30pm.
Instead of four coaches, there will be six – with Cork mentor Sonia O’Sullivan having left her role.
The other three coaches – Cork duo Donncha O’Callaghan and Anna Geary, and GAA great Davy Fitzgerald – will be joined by three new faces for the run.
Ireland’s Fittest Family host Laura Fox with coaches Donncha O’Callaghan, Davy Fitzgerald, Anna Geary, Ellen Keane, Michael Darragh MacAuley, Andrew Trimble
The newbies are:
Retired Paralympic swimming champion and inspirational trailblazer Ellen Keane, of Dublin.
Michael Darragh MacAuley, former Dublin GAA star and winner of eight All-Ireland medals.
And Andrew Trimble, an Irish rugby legend with 70 caps to his name.
Along with some new adrenaline-pumping challenges, and stunning new locations, this series of Ireland’s Fittest Family promises to be the most hotly-contested in its 11-year history.
And the first episode on Sunday has a Cork family competing, as the Walsh family are mentored by debutant Michael Darragh MacAuley. The Rebel clan will face down Anna Geary’s two competitors – the McClement family, from Down, and the Carr family, from Westmeath – and the Byrne family of Dublin, also mentored by Darragh MacAuley.
It promises to be a fierce contest to mentor the nation’s fittest families through gruelling challenges designed to push them to the edge – physically and mentally.
Taking place in the rugged Gormanston Army camp, the Heats will unfold over three weeks, and each week one original coach will go head-to head with a new coach.
For the first time this year, the events are demonstrated by members of the Irish Defence Forces.
The families must each take on a brand new event, Box To The Top. Starting in the sea, this is a head-to-head race along an army training ground with kit-boxes and sandbags to carry along the course.
The four families then have their stamina tested by Truck Pull, heaving an enormous 7.5 tonne army truck along a decommission runway.
With the scores of the first two events are combined, the two highest-scoring families go through to the next round, and the two families at the bottom have to face off in the Army Eliminator.
