Sometimes you just have to accept, painful as it is, that these Olympians are made of sturdier stuff than the rest of us. And there’s the small matter of the talent issue, too. While we were all sleeping this morning, Daniel Wiffen was chucking himself in to the Seine for his 10km open water debut, not content with the two medals he’d already won at these Games. Like it was just a bit of fun for the fella.
He didn’t add to his medal haul, but his 18th place finish was a heck of an effort, Johnny Watterson up bright and early to witness it.
Wiffen, then, was the first of 13 Irish athletes in action today – hopefully that’ll prove to be our lucky number. The (potential) highlight comes at 7pm this evening in the 400m final when Rhasidat Adeleke attempts to become Ireland’s first Olympic track medalist since Sonia O’Sullivan at the 2000 Sydney Games. Ian O’Riordan sets the scene. You can see the full Irish schedule for today at the Olympics by clicking on the link below to continue reading.
Johnny Watterson, meanwhile, writes about the controversy surrounding boxers Imane Khelif from Algeria and Lin Yu-ting from Taiwan, the pair “the collateral damage” in “an increasingly dirty turf war” between the International Boxing Association and the International Olympic Committee.
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And Ian reflects on Thursday evening’s athletics action, among the highlights Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s world record-breaking, gold-medal winning 400m hurdles run when, once again, she was “running into another realm of her own”.
In between Wiffen and Adeleke, we have 11 more representatives on duty. Aside from the Irish action, there’s no end to Friday’s offerings, among them China looking to maintain their record of being the only nation to win the men’s table tennis team event since it was introduced in 2008 (2pm). They take on Sweden. At 6pm, France meet Spain in the men’s football final at the Parc des Princes, and an hour later the Netherlands will attempt to defend their Olympic title when they play China in the women’s final.
And there are a bunch of athletics finals this evening, including the women’s 4x100m relay (6.30), the men’s 4x100m relay (6.47), the women’s 10,000m (7.57) and the men’s 400m hurdles (8.45). Although Irish eyes will be firmly fixed on that women’s 400m final (7.0).
Irish in action
6.30am: Daniel Wiffen (Swimming – 10km open water - Finished 18th.)
From 8.0am: Leona Maguire and Stephanie Meadow (Golf – third round)
From 9.05am: Kate O’Connor (Athletics – Heptathlon)
From 9.40am: Women’s 4 x 400m (Athletics – Relay, heat two - Third in heat two, qualified for Saturday’s final.)
10.30am: Mark English (Athletics – 800m semi-finals)
11.05am: Sarah Lavin (Athletics – 100m Hurdles semi-finals)
5.09pm: Alice Sharpe and Lara Gillespie (Cycling – Madison final)
7.0pm: Rhasidat Adeleke (Athletics – 400m final)
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