Road to Tokyo 2020 - Irish Olympic News

Cosmo Kramer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655403#Comment_117655403

There's a general thread in the After Hours forum. I'm sure there will be something in the athletics forum specifically for track and field once that starts next weekend.

Not sure if this thread title should be renamed as we are no longer on the road to Tokyo, but it has always really just been for Irish competitors either way.

Happyhouse22

Annaliese Murphy 35th of 44 in her opening race, one more race later and I’m sure she will be hoping to do a bit better.

Cosmo Kramer

No wind = no hope for Annalise. Always needs strong winds to have a chance because of her size compared to her rivals.

I'm really glad she got the silver last time out because the winds aren't always going to fall in her favour at the Olympics so it's great that she got the medal when the conditions fell her way.

One bad race here is not a disaster by any means but if the winds don't pick up she'll end up a long way back in the field unfortunately.

Byrne and Doyle continued their poor form today, last in their semi final and more than 10 seconds behind the next worst team across the two semi finals. They will almost certainly finish last in the B final as well, their body language is of a team that have given up. Hard to know where it has gone wrong for them, maybe it will come out in time but something clearly not right.

Sanita Puspure with a good win in her single sculls QF, beating one of her medal rivals from the US. However the Russian in another QF was absolutely miles ahead of everyone else in terms of time, almost unbelievably so.

Sanita will have a battle on her hands for silver or bronze, her hopes probably depend on how much she was holding in reserve today (it didn't look like she held too much back).

This could well be an event where silver becomes gold and fourth becomes bronze down the line being honest so still plenty of hope for her going into the semis.

Jegou missed a gate in the first slalom run so he will have it all to do in his second run.

peek a boo

I would love to see Sanita do well. Remember how heartbroken she was at Rio.

dr.kenneth noisewater

Good swim from Mona McSharry to finish 3rd in her heat behind a SA swimmer who beat the OR in first

Cosmo Kramer

Ninth fastest overall in the heats. She was ranked 11th going in so not entirely unexpected, but great to see her swim close to her best on the day all the same. If she could swim a PB in the semi she might squeeze into the final, which would be an amazing achievement.

yerwanthere123

Mona McSharry has made the final! Fabulous result.

Lost Ormond

7s losing 14-7 at half time. South Africa dominated possession and territory but ireland took a good score just before half time!!

Lost Ormond

33-14 loss. comfortable win in end for South Africa but Ireland good in parts

External Association

The hockey is frustrating. I know we're playing the Dutch but like most Irish teams we can't string a few passes together. Give possession back straight away.

The_Kew_Tour

To get to olympic final is some achievement. She have produce a PB to medal but who knows.

Cosmo Kramer

Brilliant from McSharry. First Irish Olympic swimming finalist since Mick Smith, or even earlier if you discount her achievements.

Would take a miracle for her to get a medal but even if she finishes 8th it will have been a fantastic Olympics for her.

Jegou has crashed out in the canoeing and the 7s really need a win against the US later this morning. Irvine will be disappointed to have lost a close enough fight at flyweight. Michaela Walsh up next.

Piehead

Eire failing badly at most sports at the moment. Unlikely to get many medals at all. Maybe a couplE if bronzes at best if they’re lucky

Cosmo Kramer

No joy for Michaela Walsh - that's a real medal hope gone for us. Could be looking at Harrington as our only medal hope in boxing now, maybe Aiden Walsh also if things go his way.

lawrencesummers

Irelands biggest achievement in this olympics is likely to be on the coaching side of boxing.

HeidiHeidi

Irish competitor going in the sailing - the last day that cameras will be covering the Laser radials - and RTE decide to show Bel-Ger men's hockey??

lawrencesummers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117661502#Comment_117661502

RTE are a joke. Their coverage in the last olympics was the same.

peek a boo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117661417#Comment_117661417

Great news to wake up to! Think she was on Ireland’s Fittest Family a while back. Some achievement.

Cosmo Kramer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117661493#Comment_117661493

To be fair most performances have been in line with ranking so far. The only big medal hope out so far would be Byrne/Doyle in rowing, they massively underperformed.

Other than that our three other rowing chances are all doing well, McClenaghan has made the final in the pommel and Kelly Harrington hasn't started yet in boxing. Those along with Aidan Walsh (hasn't started yet) and Byrne/Doyle were likely to be our best hopes. Mona McSharry is very unlikely to win a medal but has performed above expectations to make her final.

Still a good chance of four or five medals as things stand, which would make it one of our best performances ever at the Olympics. The focus in Ireland on GAA, soccer and 15s rugby will always limit our success levels at the Olympics unfortunately.

KevinK

Is anyone else finding this Olympics much harder to follow than previous years (even apart from the time difference)?

The loss of the BBC red button channels is dissapointing- I woke at 3am this morning to watch the rugby sevens only to find it not on RTE,BBC or any of the Eurosport channels. IS the Discovery+ app a good alternative?

But even the Olympic website I am finding quite disappointing, in Rio they had almost instant easy to follow results for every event. I have'nt found anything like that so far this year. I see the Olympic app mentioned earlier in the thread, maybe that's what I need?

Also the sailing live tracker seems much poorer and harder to follow than in Rio..

Speak Now

Not happening this time round for Murphy in the sailing, well down the field again in races 3 and 4. I guess the wind didn't blow.

Lost Ormond

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117661898#Comment_117661898

Eurosport have a few extra channels if you have Sky - 983 to 989 all are eurosport showing various events

Discovery app is ok in places. dropped a few times last night when i was watching the rugby

leahyl

Our lad in the badminton doing well at the moment!

Cosmo Kramer

Discovery+ is well worth the few Euro for a 1 month subscription. Just remember to cancel it again afterwards. You get everything that's filmed by a camera and can watch things back "as live" at any time if you don't want to get up at ten past two in the morning to watch a rowing repechage or whatever.

It has crashed on me a few times though - saying a live event is unavailable, that's the only downside, but overall it is well worth it for the one month subscription.

I agree the official Olympics website and app are very poor this time around. The app has up to date scoring from each event but I can't find a way to collate results from heats etc. - so it will have, say, a swimming heat result within seconds of the race ending, but it seems the only way to find out which competitors have qualified is to look through all the heats and note the times, it doesn't seem to collate them at all - very poor. It's also really buggy and crashes a lot and the layout and filter system is not at all user friendly.

Considering the scale of the event and that they've had an extra year to put things like this in place, some of the official coverage is very amateur this time around.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117661494#Comment_117661494

We've been unlucky with the boxing draw so far ; both Michaela and Emmet Brennan came up against top class opponents in their opening bout.

I'd be very hopeful for Kellie Harrington though. She's by far and away our best boxer and cannot meet the other top seed in her division until the final.

Chivito550

Bookies are all over the place in minority sports, and with the time difference. Since the heats, I got the Women's Four at 8/11 on Skybet to win a medal, even though China are the only team who can stop them, who they beat by 2.5 secs in Olympic qualification regatta, and who they were 10 secs faster than in heats.

I then spotted on paddy Power under specials the Women's Four were 9/1 to win gold, even though in the rowing section they have them 9/2 for gold (in itself good value I think). They've it taken down now, but that discrepancy was there for over a day. 😂

Chivito550

Pity about how sh1t the new boards site is btw. In past Olympics I was engaged with this forum, but now it's such an effort to post as the usability of the forum is rubbish, so it's easier to stay away.

Lost Ormond

right 7s about to start. need to win by 7 to qualify!

Lost Ormond

won 12-7 but late try conceded means theyre out.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117666379#Comment_117666379

They threw qualification away - had a clear couple of chances to score when they were 12-0 up.

Lost Ormond

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117666384#Comment_117666384

possibly. they didnt/couldnt get ball enough to Conroy and the real speedsters in the team

yerwanthere123

8th for McSharry, which was probably expected. Did brilliantly to get to the final, and back tomorrow morning for the 200m breaststroke heats!

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117666389#Comment_117666389

Even the missed conversion would have been enough to get them through - talk about fine margins.

Cosmo Kramer

The sevens team will be kicking themselves after that one. Albeit the damage in terms of medal chances was done in the USA game as, even if they had sneaked through at the end there, they were going to have to play the first seeds as a result of losing to USA.

Even still though, they were always going to need a third try and missed a load of chances to get it before inevitably coughing one up late on so they'll be really disappointed with that.

McSharry didn't swim her best in the final, probably had left it all out there just to make the final. In any case she could have swum a PB and still finished 8th, that was just the strength of what she was up against. Hopefully she will stick at it to see if she can find the extra second or so she would need to get into medal territory in 2024. Swimming is a tough slog through in terms of the training involved. I don't envy what they put themselves through.

Great win for Aidan Walsh though in the boxing, he will fight for a medal now. Mostly tough draws for our boxers this time but he got a decent one and was far too clever for the boxer from Cameroon. Definitely our best chance outside of Kelly Harrington for a boxing medal.

Cosmo Kramer

Things getting serious in terms of Irish interest from tomorrow onwards. Wednesday to Sunday is when most of our medals will come, if it's going to happen for us at this Olympics.

Wednesday 

Women's 4 final

Men's lightweight double sculls semi final

Thursday

Men's lightweight double sculls final

Women's single sculls semi final

Friday

Women's single sculls final

Aidan Walsh boxing for a medal

(Also hockey team v India, likely for a QF place)

Sunday

Pommel Horse final

Men's golf final round

Could be anywhere between one and five medals in that bunch depending on how they do.

peek a boo

Well done Carolyn Hayes who finished 23rd in the triathlon. A very brave performance in awful conditions.

dublin99

Siobhan Haughey (grand niece of Charlie's) qualified for 200 m freestyle finals in second place.

She is half Irish but swimming for Hong Kong.

Happyhouse22

Ireland win leg 1 of the 49er event in sailing, great performance.

Not sure if there is a second leg today (think not)

Speak Now

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117666811#Comment_117666811

Yeah just the one, supposed to be 3 originally.

Cosmo Kramer

No second race today, well actually that should have been the second race - the first one was cancelled.

11 more to go so early days but good to see the sailing team providing some interest as it's not going to happen for Annalise Murphy this time around.

Was having a look into Aidan Walsh's QF opponent. Doesn't seem to have a massive amount of pedigree so a decent chance for Walsh to win a medal there.

Really looking forward to the next few days now, loads coming up to keep us interested.

VinLieger

Very disappointing performance by Annalise, really compounds on the poor decision by the Irish sailing board to postpone the full set of trials for selection last year, Hopkins or Keller really deserved their shot ahead of Annalise jumping ship because the 49er didn't work out for her.

Speak Now

Tbf Annalise was leading after the first trial before the other 2 trials got postponed. It was a tough decision to be made whoever got picked.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117667255#Comment_117667255

True however it was Keller who got Ireland the spot while Annalise had been campaigning the 49er. Now just qualifying the boat shouldn't guarantee the spot but to have someone who failed in their campaign jump into the fray is wrong imo. It was Keller or Hopkins turn and Annalise should have gone out on the high of her Rio silver and id be saying that even if she was currently in sight of getting gold.

HeidiHeidi

Great swim in the 800m freestyle heats by Daniel Wiffen to win the heat!

Not sure if it'll actually get him through to the next stage, but a new Irish record.

Haven't heard of the guy before this, but v impressed by that! Goes in 1500m as well, whenever that comes around.

Stheno

Simone Biles is out of the Gymnastics team finals

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117667999#Comment_117667999

He has an interesting background. Born in Leeds and moved to Lisburn at some point - he has an intriguing Yorkshire / NI accent.

Cosmo Kramer

Easy to criticise in hindsight but I think Murphy deserved her shot at Tokyo off the back of a fourth and second at the last two Olympics. If we had sent Keller and she finished 15th or whatever people would be saying it was madness not to send Murphy - for someone to come top five twice in a row and then not be picked the next time would have been madness and been deservedly criticised.

Good effort from Wiffen, it's a shame there aren't semi finals at 800m as he would have comfortably qualified for them. Looks like he has plenty of improvement in him with a view to Paris in three years. Obviously there was never going to be a sniff of a medal in swimming but the swim team have overperformed relative to rankings these games.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117668612#Comment_117668612

Many in the sailing community have been critical since she switched back to the laser and even more so after the poor decision to postpone the trials even though there was a full year until the postponed games were scheduled to start. The issue is her making a bad choice in moving to the 49er and then switching back thus dashing the hopes of the up and coming Hopkins and Keller who unlike Annalise didn't have another boat class to fall back into.

Your argument for sending Annalise based on her 2 past performances is incredibly naive and lacking in understanding of how the qualification system works.

Firstly if Keller hadn't qualified the Irish spot while Annalise was sailing the 49er then there wouldn't even have been the option to fall back to the Laser. Secondly if the trials hadnt been cut absurdly short and Keller or Hopkins had managed to qualify ahead of Annalise they would 100% have deserved the place and anyone who then criticsed them being sent over Annalise due to her london and rio results would have been ridiculous and that's effectively what your argument is amounting to.

In my opinion its poor form on her part.

neris

This isnt the 1st Olympics where the sailor that earned the spot who wasnt high profile didnt get sent. Though the spot for the Laser Radial in Paris could be very competitive over the next few years

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117668973#Comment_117668973

Im well aware and I specifically said its not how it works nor should it be im just critical of Annalise in my opinion abusing the system where she was in the incredibly unique position of having fallback option for going to the Olympics if she failed in the 49er.