Ireland's Fittest Family returns for 'toughest' contest yet with brand new all-star coaches

With an exciting shake-up to the format, new star coaches and adrenaline-pumping challenges, this series of Ireland’s Fittest Family promises to be the most competitive yet.

Returning to screens from Sunday, November 2 on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player, the show, presented by Laura Fox, sees series veterans Davy Fitzgerald, Anna Geary and Donncha O’Callaghan face-to-face with some newcomers with a serious sporting pedigree.

Champion swimmer Ellen Keane has joined this year, as has winner of 8 All-Ireland medals Michael Darragh MacAuley and Irish rugby legend, Andrew Trimble. The bid for glory coaching the fittest Irish family will now be a six-way battle.

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Viewers will also see the families put through their paces and pushed to the edge physically and mentally in an array of brand-new challenges set by members of the Irish Defence Forces.

Taking place in the rugged Gormanston Army camp, the heats will unfold over three weeks. Each week, one original coach will go head-to head with a new coach - and it's Anna Vs Michael Darragh, Davy Vs Ellen and Donncha Vs Andrew.

Alan Tyler, RTÉ Group Head of Entertainment and Music, said:  "Now in its 13th series, Ireland's Fittest Family is back with its most competitive offering to date - and that's just with the callibre of coaches on-board! The show is a firm Sunday evening family favourite, and it's great to welcome some brand-new coaches to join our much loved veterans, along with some hugely challenging new tasks. All told, it promises to be the toughest contest yet for our competing families, every one of whom will be running, jumping, hanging, climbing, and crawling their way towards the finish line in a bid to be crowned Ireland's Fittest Family."

Kicking off week one are Anna and Michael Darragh - each with two families. Anna’s McClements family from Down and the Carr family from Westmeath will take on Michael Darragh’s teams of the Walsh's from Cork and Byrne's from Dublin.

In box to the top, the sporty families start off in the ice-cold sea and embark on a head-to-head race along an army training ground, carrying kit bags and sandbags along the way. The competing families then must face the truck pull – attempting to pull a 7.5 tonne army vehicle along a decommissioned runway.

The four families are battling it out for one of three places in the next round of Ireland's Fittest Family. At the end of episode one, when the scores of the first two events are combined, the two highest-scoring will go through to the next round. The two families at the bottom have to face off in the army eliminator.

Watch Ireland's Fittest Family from Sunday, November 2 at 6:30pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.