Team Ireland
After a bit of a lull on Thursday, it’s a busy morning for Team Ireland in Paris, starting at the crack of dawn for Daniel Wiffen in the 10km open water race.
Remarkably, it will be his first ever open water race, but sure look, where better to make your debut than the Olympic Games? He is, need you be reminded, looking to add to the gold and bronze he’s already earned himself.
The last Irish appearance of the day will be from herself, Rhasidat Adeleke aiming to become Ireland’s first Olympic track medalist since Sonia O’Sullivan at the 2000 Sydney Games when she sets off in the 400m final.
The Dominican Republic’s Marileidy Paulino is favourite to go one better than her Tokyo silver, but Poland’s reigning European champion Natalia Kaczmarek, Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser, Britain’s Amber Anning and Adeleke will all hope to push her. The only finalists we haven’t named are Sada Williams, Alexis Holmes and Henriette Jaeger, so they’ll probably be the 1-2-3.
In between Wiffen and Adeleke, we have 11 more representatives in action, among them Leona Maguire and Stephanie Meadow who will be in third round golf action. They both had another day to forget on Thursday, Maguire tied for second last after a 79, Meadow’s 74 leaving her tied for 53rd. They’ll both, you’d imagine, be happy enough to get on the plane home.
Kate O’Connor completes her heptathlon campaign on Thursday with the long jump, javelin and 800m events, and we’ll see our women’s 4 x 400m relay team make their bow and attempt to reach their final. Adeleke was, of course, part of their silver success at the European Championships in June, but for now her focus will be on her individual final.
The track action will continue with Mark English and Sarah Lavin, in the space of 35 minutes, running in their 800m and 100m hurdles semi-finals, respectively.
And then it’s over to the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome where Alice Sharpe and Lara Gillespie compete in the Madison event, three days after they were part of the team pursuit team that set a new national record, but missed out on progressing from the qualifying phase by 0.242 of a second. Talk about tiny margins.
Worth a Watch
Breaking, aka breakdancing, makes its Olympic debut at Place de la Concorde today, the first ‘dancesport’ to be included in Summer Olympic programme. And the bulk of us will have absolutely no clue what we’re watching. There are qualifying rounds through the day, before the B-girls final at 8.29pm. We expect to be Breaking authorities by the end of it and entirely familiar with terms such as ‘cipher’, ‘power head’ and ‘footwork cat’.
At 2.0pm, China will look to maintain their record of being the only nation to win the men’s table tennis team event since it was introduced in 2008. They take on Sweden. At 6.0pm, France meet Spain in the men’s football final at the Parc des Princes, and an hour later the Netherlands will attempt to defend their Olympic title when they play China in the women’s final.
And there are a bunch of athletics finals this evening, including the women’s 4x100m relay (6.30), the men’s 4x100m relay (6.47), the women’s 10,000m (7.57) and the men’s 400m hurdles (8.45). Although Irish eyes will be firmly fixed on that women’s 400m final (7.0).
Irish in action
6.30am: Daniel Wiffen (Swimming – 10km open water)
From 8.0am: Leona Maguire and Stephanie Meadow (Golf – third round)
From 9.05am: Kate O’Connor (Athletics – Heptathlon)
From 9.40am: Women’s 4 x 400m (Athletics – Relay, heat two)
10.30am: Mark English (Athletics – 800m semi-finals)
11.05am: Sarah Lavin (Athletics – 100m Hurdles semi-finals)
5.09pm: Alice Sharpe and Lara Gillespie (Cycling – Madison final)
7.0pm: Rhasidat Adeleke (Athletics – 400m final)
