Olympics Fever
It's a productive meeting of the Olympic Games for our Irish hopefuls as green shoots continue to sprout.
Nothing harnesses the sporting dreams and ambitions of a nation quite like the Olympic Games.
That’s especially so for a nation like Ireland, who’s rare return of medals turns everyday people into legends, names that will be cemented into our history books and annals forever more and remembered fondly by those lucky enough to experience their moments. When an Irish athlete competes, it always feels like the energy of the country is there in spirit, pushing them on that one extra bit from many thousands of miles away, in households up and down the country.
In 2024, we have sent our largest contingent ever to an Olympic Games and have competitors across a variety of disciplines, with some well within the grasp of a medal. Once happy to make up the numbers in a way, the outlook heading into this one wasn’t would an Ireland athlete win a medal, but how many would they win.
That number lifted off the ground on Monday night when Sligo woman Mona McSharry raced to bronze in the 100m breaststroke in the swimming theatre of dreams. A whisker separated her and fourth, and as she lifted her head from the water a nation rose in celebration that one of our girls had done it. It almost felt like a weight had collectively lifted off our shoulders that we had finally stripped away some of the shame the nation had carried in the pools since Atlanta in 1996. A woman deserving of our celebration and worship once and for all.
Elsewhere, we have medal hopes on the pommel horse with Rhys McClenaghan, in the boxing ring, on the waters in the rowing boats and once again in the pool, with the indefatigable Down boy Daniel Wiffen. To have genuine medal chances across so many different areas is quite astounding, with enough strings to our bow now to keep the country invested throughout the entirety of the hectic Olympic sprint.
What will feel unique entirely from an Irish perspective is having genuine medal hopes on the sprint track, when Rhasidat Adeleke enters the fray next week, along with the team of 4x400m competitors that became European Champions a couple of months ago. This is entirely new territory for Irish sport to contend with, traditionally a long-distance running country, where sprinting hasn’t exactly been one of our strong suit. Adeleke will have an immense amount of expectation and pressure on her to deliver but at 21 and still in the early stages of her career, her time will come.
This is truly a new era for Irish sport, where a new generation of stars will become household names. Familiar faces like rowers Fintan McCarthy and Gary O’Donovan will look to cement their legacy as two of our greatest ever sportsmen and become multi-time Olympic champions, while Wiffen, McSharry and company hope to add their names to the lore.
It’s an unprecedented and special time or Ireland. Enjoy the games, they don’t come around too often.
Beyond this supremely biases Irish coverage, it has been a story packed Olympics Games thus far.
The opening ceremony was interesting to say the least, unlike anything seen before at an Olympic games, culminating in Celine Dion singing on the Eiffel Tower.
Antoine Dupont became a gold medalist and justified his transfer from 15s rugby when France defeated Fiji in the Rugby 7s final.
22-year-old French swimmer Leon Marchand had the home nation in chaos as he broke a Michael Phelps record in the 400-meter individual medley to win a gold medal.
Mountain biker turned road cyclist turned back to mountain biker Tom Pidcock got booed past the finish line after he controversially overtook a French rider on the forest trails, winning his second gold medal in the event.
Simone Biles is back with a vengeance. Her two-part documentary on Netflix is really good to get her perspective coming out of the Tokyo games, when she pulled out of her events.
And it’s only three days in!