Road to Tokyo 2020 - Irish Olympic News

Did soemthing happen to the double or did they just not have the pace? That has to go down as a shock, thankfully they've a rep but its not a great start.

Yeah bad to see that result. Definite concerns. On the plus side Sunita got through as heat winner comfortably.

Shane Ryan out of his best event the 100m backstroke.

It wasn't good at all. They got off to a slightly slower start than the other three boats but had pulled themselves back into third by 1000m. At that stage, given that it was three from four to go through, you would have expected them to manage the race from there but by 1500m they were last again and never looked like making up the difference in the last 500m. In the end they pretty much packed it in with 100m to go, presumably realising that they weren't going to make it back and to conserve energy for the repechage.

The only positives I could offer were that there were only small gaps between the four boats throughout and possibly the poor start might have killed their rhythm. Also the heats are very forgiving in that, unless they are absolutely awful, they will get through the repechage. I think the whole stage only results in the elimination of one boat, from 13 down to 12.

However it means taking on an extra race than their main competitors which is likely to reduce any remaining chance of a medal. They skipped the mixed zone after the race so no explanation of what happened.

Puspure looked decent but there's a lot of dead weight in that event so she didn't beat much in relative terms. You could see enough from the winners of the other heats to realise that she'll have plenty of competition for a medal in the final if she gets that far.

Has anyone any good ways of following when Irish athletes are competing. I have downloaded app and checked few different websites and i can't find a way to tag athletes/nations. I would like a quick overview that i can look at to see when irish are competing. I know RTE/other news sites will have it each day but I want to see it now!!!

Team Ireland schedule for Tokyo. Note that some of the rowing times have since been moved with the Monday rowing schedule moving to Sunday.

Absolutely huge day tomorrow to properly kick us off with rowing, cycling, boxing, gymnastics, taekwondo, boxing and swimming involving Irish competitors. Dressage too but that's probably one to skip since there's loads of more interesting stuff (apologies to any dressage enthusiasts on the forum!). With a team of 116 it will be harder to stay on top of it all than previously but it's great at the same time.

I'm on three weeks paternity leave so the timing couldn't be better really, cover the nights and watch the Olympics at the same time.😀

Hmmmmph.

If you filter the app by country (Ireland), then sailing isn't listed as one of our sports 🤨

I've seen suggestions that the doubles guys had their training interrupted by the pandemic - one of the two of them returned to being a doctor for a long while.

Some of the other crews should surely be okay. The Womens Fours and O'Donovan / McCarthy have been in quite excellent form this year. I'd be inclined to put last night's flop down as a one off.

Well the two lads managed to find one boat that was slower than them and they have snuck in to the semi finals as the 12th and last boat. Once again, far from impressive though and it would be a surprise at this stage if they went any further at these Olympics.

Hopefully we hear from them as to what the story is, because they're performing way below expectations.

I would definitely have gone with Kellie Harrington as the female but, yes, you could make a strong case for another sport for the male.

Crowley and Dukarska fourth of four in their heat also. To be fair expectations were much lower for them and that result was probably to be expected. Again 12 of 13 will go through to the semi finals so they may well progress from the repechage.

5th of 6 for Casey and Cremen. Again, that would be about right in terms of expectations for them, they only just qualified at the last qualification event. O'Donovan/McCarthy up next for us in a few minutes.

I know literally nothing about the pommel horse event but Rhys McClenaghan looked fairly happy with himself after his performance there, so I'm going to take it that it went well!

Really straightforward for McCarthy and O'Donovan in their heat. Looked really comfortable out there with plenty more in the tank.

Fantastic row by the Women's Four.....pushed Australia all the way and only very narrowly edged out. These girls could be contenders to medal.

Rhys McCleneghan qualified in first place from his division (there are two more divisions in total).

Was mad how tense and close that match was. He did look destroyed. Am I right in saying he can still win bronze via repechage?

Ah I see. Desperately disappointing for him so.

Eddie Dunbar part of a breakaway group of three in the road race, 50km from home.

Edit - the breakaway doesn't hold, but credit to him for trying it there, if they had gotten away he was well set for a medal.

My legs are screaming at me watching the cyclists doing the mountain stage, brutal stuff.

Now 2-0, that should ease the nerves - we've been totally dominant anyway.