Northern Ireland's top sprinter Lauren Roy will not compete at the July Commonwealth Games in Glasgow despite being among the fastest athletes on the island. The 25-year-old, who holds the Northern Ireland 200m record, was excluded from Team NI's athletics team because she did not meet the governing body's participation requirements. Roy is currently completing her final year at a college in Texas, where she has pursued elite training opportunities in the USA.

The core issue stems from a scheduling conflict between Athletics NI's mandatory selection criteria and Roy's college commitments. The policy required athletes to compete at the 2025 or 2026 NI & Ulster Senior Championships, but when dates were announced in early 2026, they clashed directly with the NCAA Division One Championships—a major American college athletics event where Roy was already committed. Although Roy requested an exemption from Athletics NI, the governing body declined, leaving her ineligible for selection regardless of her athletic credentials. Roy has expressed frustration that the policy was implemented without sufficient advance notice of specific dates, arguing that elite athletes competing internationally deserve flexibility in such circumstances.