The Team
Capt Mick Liddy
Mick Liddy, 32, hails originally from Naas in Co Kildare, and is one of the Air Corps most experienced helicopter pilots.
He has worked as a Search and Rescue helicopter pilot for seven years, amassing 150 Rescues and Air Ambulance calls, and now trains other pilots to do the same.
Mick has recently spent time flying the Garda Air Support Helicopter and served with the UN in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
He has also flown politicians and heads of state as part of his government service duties.
On the water, Capt Liddy has received even more plaudits. As one of Ireland's most accomplished amateur offshore yachtsmen, he has held two World Sailing Records, including the record for the fastest solo sailing time around Ireland, and won the Double-handed Round Britain and Ireland race in 2006.
He added a win in the Maxi World Championships in 2009, one of his many successful appearances for Ireland on the international yachting stage.
Mark Pollock
Mark Pollock, 34, is an adventure athlete and author from Holywood, Northern Ireland.
For the last decade, he has taken on the world's toughest challenges. He has run 6 marathons in 7 days across the Gobi Desert, raced on skis to the South Pole and competed in marathons on Everest, the Dead Sea and at the North Pole.
He has competed against professional adventurers like Sir Ranulph Fiennes in some of the highest-profile adventure races on the planet.
What's different about how Mark sees those challenges is that he does so without sight.
For the last decade, Mark Pollock has been blind.
Mark lost his sight when his retinas detached aged just 22, at that stage a promising business and economics student at Trinity College and an international rower. A career in investment banking and life as he knew it quickly faded from view. Once over the shock of blindness, Mark was challenged to redefine his life framed by his new circumstances. He moved back to Dublin and resumed post-graduate study and rowing, winning two medals at the Commonwealth games.
He now makes his living as a professional adventure athlete and as a public and motivational speaker.