Show me the medals! Nothing succeeds in Irish sport like silverware

They came from all around and lined the village long before his arrival. As sporting homecomings come and go this one may never actually be surpassed, which is all part of wonder and joy and what makes them so special to begin with.

Evidence too that nothing succeeds in Irish sport like silverware, or in this case the European Under-20 bronze medal Darragh McElhinney brought home to Glengarriff in west Cork on Wednesday evening. It didn’t need to be the gold, or indeed the Claret Jug, only something the village people could see and touch and somehow feel a part of.

McElhinney, not unlike Shane Lowry on his arrival back into Clara the evening before, appeared properly humbled by it all, as well he might. Only 18 and still fresh out of his Leaving Cert year at Coláiste Pobail Bheanntraí, his bronze medal won over 5,000m at those European Under-20 Championships in Sweden last Sunday was actually short of his own expectation, which was to win gold.

No millions either, baby. That didn’t matter to the people of Glengarriff. Behind a Garda escort, seated in an open-top Mercedes and draped in the Tricolour, McElhinney rolled into the village still a champion of their own. On the back of a truck set up as a stage – again not unlike Lowry – he thanked all those who helped him get this far, and they were many.

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Perilous journey

He’s still a long way to go, only McElhinney is in good company in other ways, only the third Irish athlete in 55 years to medal in an Under-20 5,000m, after John Treacy’s silver back in 1975, and Mark Carroll’s gold in 1991. Treacy went on to win a few more, Carroll did too, and while every underage medal is just a stepping stone to what potentially lies ahead – and there is no more perilous journey in sport than what lies ahead for the young athlete – there is no denying they carry some weight.

Evidence of that came again when Rhasidat Adeleke completed a properly rare sprint double when winning the 200m at the European Youth Olympics in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Thursday evening. Prompting the second congratulatory tweet from the Áras, Adeleke also made it seven underage medals for Irish athletics within the last fortnight: Kate O’Connor winning Under-20 silver in the heptathlon in Sweden last week, as did Sarah Healy in the 1,500m silver, along with McElhinney’s bronze, plus a bronze for Nadia Power over 800m and a silver for Eilish Flanagan in the 3,000m steeplechase at the European Under-23 Championships earlier this month.

They've all a long way to go too, especially if they're to make it to the Tokyo Olympics, evidence of that also coming this week when Thomas Barr was in town to remind us there were only 365 days to go. No one loves the big countdown more than the Olympics, even if for Barr, July 24th has always been looming large over his life, because it's also his birthday.

Still, part of that early excitement is the fact Tokyo will present Barr with another chance to chase the Olympic medal which fell just out his reach in the 400m hurdles in Rio three years ago – by .05 of a second, to be exact. Far away, so close – take your pick, only to win a medal in Tokyo, Barr will likely need to improve on the 47.97 seconds he ran in Rio. The event has moved on considerably, Norway’s Karsten Warholm, who didn’t make the final in Rio, clocking a national record of 47.12 in the London Diamond League last weekend.

Banned

Barr also looked back on Rio and wondered in another way. Second-place finisher Boniface Tumuti from Kenya, who ran a national record on 47.78 in an event where Kenya had no tradition, hasn’t broken 50 seconds in the three years since, and appears to have dropped off the circuit completely. “It’s just one of the ongoing struggles with the sport, isn’t it?” Barr also said of Kenya’s increasingly poor doping record since Rio, women’s marathon gold medallist Jemima Sumgong banned for eight years in January for fabricating her medical records. There might actually be some hope there yet.

There are other more tangible reasons to be hopeful of Ireland’s medal chances for Tokyo. Also marking the one-year-to-go countdown, Gracenote Sports, a sports data company, released their medal predictions for next summer’s Games, and have put hosts Japan on course to lift its medal haul by a bigger percentage than any Summer Olympic host nation for nearly 30 years, with a total of 67 medals, 29 of them gold. Three years ago in Rio, Japan ranked sixth with 41 medals, 12 of which were gold.

That same Gracenote prediction has Great Britain’s medal count dropping significantly from recent Games. The British team won 67 medals at Rio 2016, but Gracenote forecasts they will take home 43 medals next year, placing them fifth in the medal table, behind the United States (126), China (81), Japan (67) and Russia (65). Gracenote says it is due to “lower expectations” in rowing, track cycling and artistic gymnastics, events where Britain won 11 gold medals in Rio.

Ireland's medal count in Rio, the silver for sailor Annalise Murphy and rowers Paul and Gary O'Donovan, fell below most expectations and predictions, especially given what happened with Katie Taylor and Michael Conlan. That was also our lowest summer medal haul since Athens 2004, where the sole gold medal won by showjumper Cian O'Connor had to be handed back after his horse Waterford Crystal tested positive for a banned substance.

The heat is already coming on for Tokyo. This week’s beach volleyball test event was staged in 33 degrees, about average for Japan in July, and according to the predictions Ireland should win eight medals in Tokyo – three gold, four silver, and one bronze. Lowry is now in that mix somewhere, which is a good thing, because no Olympic homecoming is the same without a medal.