A huge turnout of young athletes, befitting the significance of the occasion, will mark the last Tailteann Games of the millennium at Santry next Saturday.

The ancient Tailteann Games, inaugurated in 632 BC, were held almost without interruption in the first week of August until 1169. Then, having lapsed for 855 years, they were revived in 1924 with a gathering of international athletes at Croke Park.

The modern concept of the Games as a festival of schools athletics, derives from a meeting of Bill Hyland and the late Jack Sweeney in 1963 and the decision of Nestle to involve themselves in the longest sponsorship in Irish sport.

Hyland and John Shields, among others, will be presenting Saturday's programme in which Paul Grant, Liam Reale, Sarah Ewing and Deirdre Byrne will be expected to embellish the Tailteann ideal as a nursery of emerging talent.