SWIMMING

There is a great Northern Irish phrase ‘to catch yourself on’ and we could all do with a dose of that having been a shade disappointed ‘only’ to win a Bronze Medal with Daniel Wiffen in Paris on Sunday night.

Just after the Women’s Road Race whizzed by outside the Team Ireland House beside the Moulin Rough, Our Golden Olympian doubled his medal count behind American Booby Finke in World Record time.

Daniel could just not live with the pace and while a medal looked secure from half way into the gruelling 1500 metre race, it ended up as a Bronze, which is still a remarkable achievement but which gave rise to a little deflation fro the hundreds gathered to watch in Team Ireland’s great fan base in the middle of the city.

When we gathered our wits though it was celebrated that this is now officially Ireland’s most successful games in historu.

The seven medals won with a week to go is the biggest number ever won, and one more than the total we garnered in nine Olympic Games from Rome in 1960 until Barcelona in 1992.

Consider ourselves caught on. And well done once again to Daniel Wiffen our strongest ever male swimmer with the opportunity to dominate the sport in years to come.

SAILING

As the Men’s one-person dinghy event reaches its fleet series climax, Ireland’s Finn Lynch (National Yacht Club) had another solid day in Marseille (Sunday 4 August) and has moved from 15th place to 10th in his 43-strong event overnight.

Just two races remain in the fleet series that will determine the top ten sailors who will contest Tuesday’s medal race final.

Lynch had a consistent day with a 13th in the first race. In the second race, he was one of 30 boats rounding the top mark within a few seconds and was forced into hitting the mark to avoid a collision. He took penalty turns and was still able to recover ground to finish a respectable 11th.

“It’s light winds again tomorrow, so the last light wind day of this regatta I didn’t perform very well,” admitted Lynch. “We know what I want to improve there -I need to be a bit more punchy on the starts, I was too far off the line so I’ll be happy if I can do that.”

“I’m an all-round sailor – I really could do well in strong or light winds but I just wasn’t able to get off the start line in the light winds on the first light winds day of this regatta.”

While the regatta is being dominated by Australian World Champion Matthew Wearn, the podium is by no means certain though Lynch appeared to rule himself out of medal stakes.

“I just want to sail well and finish the Olympics with my best day, hopefully tomorrow – that’s my goal,” he said. “The results don’t look too bad but my sailing wasn’t super good so hopefully I can improve tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, in the women’s one-person dinghy, Eve McMahon (Howth Yacht Club) has recovered ground to 14th overall and has a 22-point gap to close to the top ten sailors.

Any result in the top 20 boats for a first-time Olympian would be an outstanding achievement but the World Under 21 World Champion is hugely ambitious.

“I really want to make the medal race, I’ve always been on the edge of it the past season,” McMahon said after racing ended. “Medal race is top ten and I’ve always been 11th 12th 13th 14th the whole season, I’m knocking at the door of it would be amazing to make it just to be in the atmosphere and to race against them in the medal race.”

McMahon has been analysing her performance in recent days and made improvement that led to her sixth and 15th places for the penultimate day.

“I think sometimes I was tacking a little bit too much and getting a bit lost in the (wind) shifts, whereas today, I did a lot less tacks on the upwind and just kind of trusted myself to go to one side and it really paid off today.”

Two further races are scheduled in both the men’s and women’s event on Monday that will conclude the fleet series in each event.

CYCLING

Road cycling events at Paris 2024 came to a close today, Sunday 4th of August, with the Women’s Road Race. Offaly’s Megan Armitage was the sole representative for Team Ireland. 2024 marked the first time in over 20 years that Ireland has been represented in this event.

Making her Olympic debut, Armitage finished 35th in gruelling 158km race, and would have placed much higher if she hadn’t been hampered with 48km to go.

The Shinrone rider was right up at the head of the peloton, throwing in attacks amidst legends like Netherland’s Marianne Vos, when the race re-entered the city with 50km to go but then a rider went down in front of Armitage on a tight corner on the cobbles of Montmarte, forcing her to stop. Detached from the leaders as the race went into its critical criterium stage, with some tough climbs, she just couldn’t make it back up.

It is a measure of how good the 27-year-old was feeling at the time that she was disappointed with her placing.

“I was well positioned going into the circuits but, just as I entered the first climb there was a crash, and I got stuck behind it. I needed to be quicker to get back up to the front group then, but the group I was in had teammates in the break at that point and weren’t co-operating.

“In the final 2km I went with another girl and still felt really good,” Armitage added.

“I’m happy with how I approached the race, just disappointed with the result. It was an incredible experience. I never expected to be here. I could almost hear my family calling my name every time on the circuit, there were so many Irish there!

“I had bad luck, being behind the crash and not in front of it. These things happen, but before that, I rode a really good race.

It’s the best I’ve ever felt in a race, just not the result I hoped for.”
Armitage’s dramatic rise from cycling socially during lockdown to a professional career within four years, is already a remarkable one and her brave attacking performance today underlined her potential.

The team of Lara Gillespie, Kelly Murphy, Alice Sharpe and Mia Griffin will take to the track on Tuesday, 6th of August, for the qualifying round in the Women’s Team Pursuit.

ATHLETICS

Cathal Doyle produced the race of his life at the Stade de France tonight to narrowly miss out on a Olympic 1500m final place. The Clonliffe Harriers clubman finished 10th in his semi-final, clocking a massive personal best of 3:33.15, almost one second quicker than his previous best.

Doyle, who is from Swords, executed his race magnificently and with 100 metres to go remained in contention before fading slightly in the closing stages as the leaders pulled away. His time moves him to second on the Irish all-time list for the event behind Andrew Coscoran.

The 26-year-old was upbeat when reflecting afterwards: “I wasn’t a million miles off an Olympic final. I don’t think the repechage was a bad thing. I was a different man today and yesterday. I was way more relaxed, chilling out, I wasn’t even thinking of the race until the warmup.

“Before the heat I didn’t sleep a wink dreaming of missing the bus. When you’re running with a crowd like this, the first 800m is just gone, the race just goes really quickly. The crowd are unreal. I don’t know how I’ll go back to racing in front of one hundred people in a few weeks.”

Doyle finished the semi-final in 10th, which saw him 16th overall on times.
 

 

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