Ireland’s Olympics were emotional – deeply and beautifully so
This is how it ends. A throbbing stadium, in this case the Vélodrome National at Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, about an hour outside Paris. A national anthem in the background, in this case the Netherlands – it is track cycling after all. An Irish athlete standing in front of us sweating and spent, in this case track cyclist Lara Gillespie, who has just finished 10th in the omnium.
Gillespie left every last cell of herself on the track, writes Malachy Clerkin. She was fifth going into the points race and when she stole an early lap on the field, she hauled herself up to within three points of a medal. But the effort had hollowed her out – when the attacks started coming from everywhere in the last few laps, she had nothing left to counter them.
Full coverage of Olympics 2024
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News in Ireland
- Hundreds of thousands of women could access free HRT under new plans: Hundreds of thousands of women will potentially be able to access free hormone replacement therapy under new plans being advanced by the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly.
- ‘The slaughter has to stop’: Tánaiste accuses Israel of facilitating the killing of children: Israel appears to be following a premeditated strategy of facilitating the killing of civilians and children in Gaza, Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said, as he condemned an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter.
- TV licence sales fail to recover from drop-off caused by RTÉ pay controversy, new data shows: The volume of licences sold until the end of July 2024 is 14 per cent lower than the comparable figures for 2022, and almost 11 per cent lower than the figures for 2023.
- Weather forecast: Heavy showers and thunderstorms in parts of Connacht, Ulster and north Leinster will clear away to the northeast this morning. Monday will be a largely dry day with sunny spells. Highest temperatures of 17 to 23 degrees with moderate to fresh southwesterly winds in the morning, easing light to moderate. Tonight will be cloudy with patchy rain in the west and southwest early tonight. Lowest temperatures of 12 to 16 degrees.
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World
- Russia evacuates another border region with threat from Ukrainian units growing: Russia has evacuated more territory close to Ukraine after Kyiv sharply increased military activity near the border just days after its biggest incursion into sovereign Russian land since the start of the 2022 war.
The Big Read
- Two Ryanair passengers complain to Pricewatch. The airline is having none of it: Readers will no doubt recall last month’s global computer meltdown that crashed the systems of countless companies and left the plans of millions of people in disarray? Derek Doherty was one of those people.
Opinion
- Una Mullally: Kamala Harris is backing Donald Trump into a corner. Dangerous times
- Laura Kennedy: Millennials are the most therapised generation yet. So why aren’t we happy?
Business
- Number of Irish pubs earmarked for home conversion approaches 100: The pub is increasingly becoming a part of Ireland’s housing solution. Almost 100 defunct drinking holes are being converted into homes as part of a current Government scheme targeting vacant commercial properties.
Life & Style
- Síofra Murdock of Throwing Shapes: ‘You need so much patience with ceramics. It draws in really sound people’: Throwing Shapes, a new community ceramics studio in Dublin, has become a hive of activity in recent weeks. Opening it was the realisation of a dream for Síofra Murdock, a ceramicist from Co Down.
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