We haven’t even had the opening ceremony yet and already we’ve witnessed Irish heartache at these Olympic Games, Johnny Watterson at the Stade de France on Thursday to see the medal hopes of Ireland’s men ended by Fiji in the quarter-finals of the rugby Sevens. “The pity is they were good enough to do it,” he writes, but “a second-half blitz of tries” by the Fijians put paid to those hopes. So, even before the Games officially commence, dreams of a place on the podium have been dashed. “No luck of the Irish in Paris 2024,” says Johnny, but we’ll just trust that fortunes will change in the fortnight ahead.
Judging by Johnny and Ian O’Riordan’s reports on life in Paris on the eve of that opening ceremony, its natives will be rather relieved when the show leaves town, intense security and traffic chaos resulting in Olympic-scale disruption of city life. Ian couldn’t even have a jog over the Seine at Pont d’Austerlitz, it now transformed in to an armed checkpoint, as have all the other bridges along the river ahead of this evening’s ceremony.
In Gaelic games, you’d imagine regular life in Clare has been somewhat disrupted too by those post All Ireland-winning celebrations, Joe Canning reflecting on the closest of finals. “When you win a one-point game nobody questions anything you did,” he writes. “When you lose a one-point game, everything is wrong.”
Aidan Forker is hoping that everything will be right with the world come this Sunday when he leads Armagh in to their football final against Galway, Gordon Manning hearing from the captain, while Galway’s Dylan McHugh, a contender for the 2024 Footballer of the Year award, will be aiming to paint the town maroon. He talks to John Fallon.
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Should McHugh and his comrades succeed, the atmosphere at next week’s Galway festival will be even more joyous than anticipated, Brian O’Connor previewing “the most distinctive jewel in Irish racing’s crown”.
Philip Reid brings encouraging news from Carnoustie where Pádraig Harrington and Peter Lawrie are just three strokes off the pace after solid opening rounds at the Senior Open Championship. There were mixed fortunes for Irish clubs on the soccer front, though, Gavin Cummiskey seeing St Patrick’s Athletic get the better of FC Vaduz in the first leg of their Europa Conference League qualifier, but Shelbourne left with the mother of all mountains to climb after a 3-0 defeat by FC Zurich.
TV Watch: It’s Olympic opening ceremony day (BBC One, 5.45pm, RTÉ 2 6pm, Eurosport 4.30pm), the three-and-a-half hour show, which will take place on the Seine rather than in a stadium, scheduled to start at 6.30pm.
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