Brendan Irvine – Boxing

Another to leave it to a third-place box-off in Turkey, Belfast’s “Wee Rooster” won his in the most fraught of circumstances against Bulgaria’s Daniel Asenov. The top seed in the flyweight class in Samsun, he had to pull out all the stops to subdue a fiery opponent, who set a high tempo pace and never relented. But Irvine, who made the final of the 2015 European games in Baku, where he won the silver medal, stuck with Asenov to claim his Rio place. He is the youngest of the Irish boxing team. Maybe Tokyo in 2020 will be his time and place to show more mature talent.