Ireland has won its 12th Olympic Gold medal after Armagh’s Daniel Wiffen’s stunning performance in the men’s 800m freestyle final, in a new Olympic record time of 7:38.19.
Twenty-three-year-old Wiffen becomes Team Ireland’s second medallist at these Olympic Games after teammate Mona McSharry claimed bronze in the pool last night. Wiffen, who is studying under coach Andi Manley at Loughborough University, becomes the first Irish man in history to win an Olympic swimming medal.
Wiffen stormed to gold in a time of 7:38.19, setting a new personal best (PB), national record (NR), and European record (ER) by a full second. Wiffen’s stunning performance also set a new Olympic record (OR) on the night, knocking over three seconds off the previous mark of 7:41.28 set by Mykhalo Romanchuk of Ukraine in Tokyo 2020.
In a nail-biting race, Wiffen beat Tokyo 2020 gold medallist American Bobby Finke into second place, who touched in a time of 7:38.75, with Italian Gregorio Paltrinieri claiming bronze in 7:39.38. The trio exchanged the lead throughout, with the Italian making his move at the 650m mark, but there was no panic from Wiffen, who kept to his own plan. On hitting the wall for the final turn at the 50m mark, Wiffen kicked for home, passing Paltrinieri and holding off a sprint finish from reigning champion Bobby Fink outside of him to touch the wall first, cementing his place in the history books.
Wiffen has had the most remarkable year. In February, he became the first Irish swimmer to ever medal at a World Long Course Championships before becoming double world champion in the 800m and 1500m freestyle. His 14:34.07 in the latter was the fifth fastest in history.
Speaking poolside afterwards, a jubilant Wiffen said: “I don’t think a lot of people actually believed me that I was going to do it tonight, but yeah, it was incredible. I’ve done it – that’s all I want to say!
“I was so nervous, that’s the most nervous I’ve ever been for a race but do you know what calmed me down – I heard my brother shout for me as soon as I walked out. I heard none of the crowd – just him, and that’s what calmed me down, and really levelled my head.”
“It feels incredible. Andrew Bree said it just as I want to say it –‘lights, camera, action’ – that’s exactly what I did – I’m writing myself into the history books!”
After an emotional medal ceremony when Amhrán na bhFiann played out around a packed La Defense Arena a proud Wiffen said: “I don’t normally cry. So I really hope nobody could see that but yeah, it did come out of me, obviously, it was just a special moment. I’ve never heard that national anthem at the Olympics before, and, um, yeah, it’s just crazy to say that it was me standing up on that podium hearing it for the first time at an Olympics.”
Reflecting on the race itself, Wiffen said: “I’ve been training every different scenario for what’s going to happen. To be fair, I only train one way, and that’s to try and hold on and burn everyone out, but I knew the Olympics was going to be completely different. Really my first 200m was absolutely terrible. My stroke was all over the place, but luckily, I had a good enough easy speed to keep it going and was still in the race. my goal was to keep building, keep building, keep building, and we got to the 150m and in my head, it went so fast.
“Then I was literally just looking at Bobby Fink; that’s all I was doing. This guy comes back the fastest, I was like I had to have at least a body length on him. I was doing this weird low key stroke to try to have a look, and went on the turn; the last wall turn, I put my head down and sprinted the last 20m. WAS dying the last 20 metres- not sure if you saw that but my arms were in so much pain – but I knew that the crowd was gonna carry me in and that’s exactly what happened and I saw the red light on the block and that was it!”
Asked about his next event; the 1500m final Wiffen said: “Yeah, 1500m on Saturday, my hope is to be back on the podium again and my goal now is to just get the recovery in. I will enjoy myself tonight. I will try treat myself to maybe whatever they have in the village, I don’t know what they have in the village to be fair but yeah, just get through the 1500 heats and see what happens.
“People should just watch my YouTube channel. I blog/vlog every week, show you exactly what an Olympic champion does, day in, day out in the pool and I don’t know what else to say – subscribe!” laughed Ireland’s ninth ever Olympic gold medallist.
CANOE SLALOM
In his debut Olympic Games 26-year-old Noel Hendrick successfully advanced to the Men’s K1 semi-final, clinching the 19th of 20 available places. Moving quickly through the first half of the course in run one, Hendrick picked up a number of penalties for touching gates as he raced towards the line, adding an additional 10 seconds to his run time. Even with these penalties, the Kildare man was still within the top 20 boats.
On his second run down the course, Hendrick improved massively staying clean through the middle section, only gaining one penalty for clipping the fifth gate to book his Olympic semi-final place on Thursday, where a top 12 finish will be needed to make the final.
Hendrick, who 2008 Beijing Olympian Eoin Rheinisch coaches, gave this take on his day: “It was a really tough day. I think I’ve been struggling the last few weeks with being very safe and not taking risks in my runs. All I wanted to do today was go out and try to attack and race my fastest. I think in my first run, I really achieved that, but I took too many penalties, and it was a really difficult build-up to the second run.
“I guessed that I had to improve, I didn’t know for sure, but when I was in the start pool of the second run all I could hear was the commentators saying that I needed to improve my time and that was really tough mentally, but I performed well. I had a spin out and a touch in the middle of the run and I just knew from that point onwards I had to perform, I had to put down the fastest run that I possibly could so it was freeing in a way, but also I just attacked all the way to the bottom and I’m really pleased.”
Earlier, Michaela Corcoran, daughter of double Olympian Mike Corcoran and twin sister of Madison, who raced at these Games on Saturday, placed 21st overall in the women’s C1 and did not advance to the semi-finals. In her first run, Corcoran clipped five gates, resulting in a ten-second penalty similar to Noel Hendricks’s first run.
In her second opportunity to push her ranking up, Corcoran started well, going out hard while keeping a good line and staying clean, only knocking the eleventh gate. However, all became undone on the penultimate gate; Corcoran narrowly missed the downstream gate, landing her with a 50-second penalty, which saw her finish in 21st place, ruling her out of contention for today’s semi-final.
WOMEN’S RUGBY SEVENS
Ireland Women’s Sevens have finished their maiden Olympic campaign in eighth place after suffering defeats to France and Great Britain on the final day of rugby Sevens action at Stade de France.
Allan Temple-Jones’ side will take huge pride from their debut at the Games, as they made their long-awaited appearance at Paris 2024, but back-to-back placing match defeats on Tuesday ultimately means they leave disappointed.
They came out on the wrong side of a tight tussle with hosts France, 19-7, in the fifth-place play-off semi-final, and later in the day, they were beaten 28-12 by Great Britain to finish eighth overall.
Megan Burns’ first-half try had kept Ireland in the contest, but Great Britain was clinical in possession and scored a couple of quickfire tries to pull clear. There was a memorable moment for late replacement, Claire Boles, however.Having replaced the injured Béibhinn Parsons in the squad, Boles came off the bench against Great Britain to score a late try and become an Olympian alongside her 13 team-mates, including Amy Larn, who was also a late injury replacement for captain Lucy Rock.
Speaking afterwards, Head Coach Temple-Jones reflected: “It was a disappointing finish to the Olympics for us but the overall feeling is pride because it has been an incredible journey with this group. Playing in front of so many people at the Stade de France is unbelievable for us and we’ve got to learn from that now moving forward.
“It was our first Olympics and we’ve got to use this experience now to grow as a squad and grow the depth within our group. Exposing young players to an Olympics like this and in a stadium like this is going to be a real strength for us going forward into next season and beyond. We hope our players grow from this and we’re back in Los Angeles in four years’ time.”
Tuesday’s action concludes the Rugby Sevens competitions at Paris 2024, with Ireland Men finishing sixth in their second Games and Ireland Women finishing eighth on their debut appearance. The gold medal match in the Women’s competition was won by New Zealand, beating the Irishcoached Canadian team 19-12.
BADMINTON
Despite a brilliant start to her Olympic badminton debut, Donegal’s Rachael Darragh was left to rue the way it finished, losing a three-game thriller 21-13, 22-24, 15-21. Darragh showed absolutely no signs of nerves on centre-court in the final game of the session in La Chapelle Arena against Switzerland’s 2023 European Games bronze medallist Janira Stadelmann, wrapping up the first game 21-13 in 20 minutes.
However, the 26-year-old from Raphoe went seven points down (7-14) in the second and had to really dig in. She saved a game point at 20-21 and then had a match point herself before losing a nail-biting second set 22-24 which the crowd really got behind.
Darragh had the edge for most of an equally tense third, leading 8-5 and always holding a lead of a point or two until Stadelmann tied it for a fifth time at 15-all but then Thai-born Swiss player clinically closed it out, winning the last six points in-a-row.
“I gave a good performance but I’m also very annoyed at the way it finished,” Darragh said.
“She slowed the game down at the end and I made too many easy mistakes. I had my chances in the second but maybe I was thinking a little too much about winning.
“I’m really proud of parts of my game but really disappointed with others, like my discipline and just thinking too far ahead. When you get that close you start thinking about all the wrong things but that comes with time and experience. I did not expect to be playing alone, on centre-court, but it was amazing, I love big arenas like this which can fit 8,000 people.”
Like her teammate Nhat Nguyen the Ulster star faces the toughest of challenges in her second and final group game tomorrow up against Spain’s Carolina Marin; a three-time world champion who is seeded fourth here in Paris.
Darragh said: “She was the Rio Olympic champion, she’s here for gold but I have nothing to lose. There’s so much from today I can use tomorrow so I can really go for it.”
SAILING
Team Ireland’s Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove continued their strong form today in Marseilles, completing the seventh, eighth and ninth races in the Men’s Skiff event. The Dublin pair are holding second position overall, behind Spain, in the fleet racing series, following a consistent string of performances across all three races in very tricky wind today.
Standings in the Men’s Skiff have tightened considerably after today’s difficult wind conditions. Few crews, with the exception of the new overall leaders Spain, escaped unscathed. The Dublin duo’s standout result of the day was their fourth-place finish in race seven, while they placed thirteenth and ninth in races eight and nine respectively.
Dickson (Howth Yacht Club) and Waddilove (Skerries Sailing Club) will contest the final three of the twelve races in the series tomorrow. All 20 teams have now incurred significant discard results so the remaining three races will be crucial.
The top ten boats of the twenty competing will go forward to Thursday’s medal race final but only the leaders are likely to be in contention.
Commenting on the performances today Robert Dickson said: “I’m feeling pretty good. It was very tricky conditions So we’re happy to get away with the results we did. The wind was off the mountain coming from the left and the right and is very unpredictable and really wavy gusty we’re happy with how we managed it.
“I think a day like that you just need to remember that everyone’s going to have – apart from the Spanish – most people are going have ups and downs. You just have to be able to stay cool, and even if the race isn’t go on your way you just need to keep looking and see what you can next.”
Seán Waddilove added: “I feel the same as I did at the beginning of the week; I think our process is to just take it race by race and not get too emotional with everything which seems to be working.
“I think the best way to stay on the results card up at the top end is to stay pretty neutral; you can’t get too happy about things and you can’t get too disappointed about things either, especially on a day like today that has massive up and downs in the fleet.”
ROWING
The Irish crew of Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch have booked their place in the final of the Men’s Double Sculls (M2x) on Thursday (Aug 1st) after impressively winning their final this morning.
“We knew we were in a good position coming in, but you don’t really know where other countries are at, and like we didn’t win a single race until Worlds last year, so we’re showing good signs, I suppose, that we’ve timed it, fairly well,” said Lynch.
“Obviously, the last block before we came here was probably our best one yet, so hopefully, we can just bring that into the final now.”
The Women’s Double (W2x) of Alison Bergin and Zoe Hyde missed out on a place in their final when they placed fifth in their semi-final and will finish their Games contesting the B final (7-12 placings) on Aug 1st. The Irish Women’s Four (W4-) will also race in the B final of their event on the same day after they were fourth in their repechage this morning; only the top two finishers made the final.
HOCKEY
Ireland Men’s Hockey suffered a 2-0 defeat to the Tokyo Olympic bronze medallists India in their third Pool match of Paris 2024 on Tuesday afternoon. Harmanpreet Singh scored a first-half double to give India an early lead at the historic Yves-du-Manoir Stadium, and although Ireland created a number of goal-scoring opportunities, the world number five ranked side held firm to see out the win.
Mark Tumilty’s Ireland side now have a rest day on Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s clash with Argentina at 12.15pm Irish time, before they conclude the Pool stages against New Zealand on Friday at 4pm Irish time.
In sweltering midday sun conditions in Paris, Ireland started positively and looked to hit India on the counter-attack, showing real intent in the final third but Singh’s penalty stroke gave India the early advantage on the scoreboard.Sharpshooter Singh doubled his and India’s score in the second quarter, his powerful penalty corner deflecting off Ben Walker’s stick and into the roof of the net, giving Davey Harte no chance.
Ireland rallied impressively after the half-time break and dominated the third quarter, winning a number of penalty corners but they were unable to convert as Lee Cole and Shane O’Donoghue were both denied, while Walker went agonisingly close after great work in the circle from Matthew Nelson. Tumilty’s men will now turn their attention to Thursday’s Pool B match where it doesn’t get much easier as the line up against Argentina; ranked seventh in the world, as they search for their first win of Paris 2024.
Irish captain Seán Murray gave his thoughts: “I think frustrated of course not to get the result there, I think the second half we found our second wind and we were really pushing hard, created lots of nice chances but unfortunately didn’t take them. You know it’s those finer details at this top level that make the difference and credit to India, they played well, defended with their lives, and managed to get the win in the end.
“Still really positive, before the tournament we probably wanted to target the last three games to get those wins to get to the quarter final, now we’ve got two more to go so we need to get there and I think we’ll keep our heads high and have the confidence to tune the finer details and try and get those two wins.”
GOLF
At the pre-tournament press conference ahead of the Men’s Individual Stroke Play commencing at Le Golf National on Thursday, Team Ireland golfers Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy were in good spirits and clearly looking forward to contesting their second Olympic Games.
When asked how he felt about the next few days McIlroy said: “I just got in last night so I’m pretty focused on preparing for the next couple of days. My focus is pretty high because last time you guys saw me I didn’t give a very good account of myself in Troon so I want to make sure I’m right where I need to be before teeing off on Thursday.”
He went on to say, “Again, I’ve been asked this question a lot of times – ‘where would an Olympic medal sit in the hierarchy of my career achievements?’ and it’s probably something I won’t be able to answer until everything is said and done. I think as golf is in the Olympics for a longer period of time, it will become more. I don’t know if anything will be able to sit alongside the majors; we have our four in the year that are the gold standard, but I think this is going to be right up there amongst that.”
Both were asked what a gold medal would do for their year. McIlroy gave his take: “It’d be the achievement, certainly of the year. I think for me it’s well documented that I haven’t won the big four in 10 years so it’d be one of, if not, the, biggest achievement of my career in the last 10 years.”
Lowry gave insight into his own thinking: “Yeah I felt I had a good chance to win The Open a couple of weeks ago, and was disappointed not to go lower on the Saturday and Sunday, and straight away after that I thought I’d a chance to redeem myself here in a couple of weeks. If you look at what the media and what it was like back home yesterday when Mona won that bronze medal winning a gold medal and bringing it back to Ireland would be pretty cool.”
BOXING
EQUESTRIAN
In Equestrian Abigail Lyle made her Olympic debut in the Dressage Individual Grand Prix on board Giraldo, at the picturesque Palace of Versailles venue, and scored a brilliant 69.441 to finish sixth in her group, but it wasn’t enough to progress to the individual final.
Lyle and 13-year-old Giraldo; affectionately known as ‘Arty’, were almost foot perfect throughout their routine, and the result meant a sixth place finish in Group B. However it wasn’t enough for the Bangor rider to qualify for Sunday’s final, but nonetheless Lyle was over the moon with the performance.
Lyle said: “I had expectations – I wanted a comfortable, happy horse to do himself proud and take him home to look after him for the rest of his life but here we are, with an amazing ride, in an amazing stadium, and I just can’t fathom it.He was so comfortable in there – we both went into some sort of zone.
“I’ve been very emotional over the last few days, sometimes nervous, sometimes overwhelmed but I’ve reminded myself that I’m so lucky to have such an incredible horse and such an incredible team around me. Everything went according to plan, maybe with the slight exception being the halt, but the main content of the test, I was delighted with.”
With thanks to the Team Ireland Media group providing a great service from Paris
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