EQUESTRIAN/Cian O'Connor's gold: Ireland's Olympic show jumping champion, Cian O'Connor, returns to Ireland this afternoon to a welcoming committee headed by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Minister for Sport John O'Donoghue.
O'Connor has been hailed as a hero throughout the land, but his gold-medal performance last Friday night was the saving grace for beleaguered Team Ireland officials, who had been staring disaster in the face.
Singlehandedly, the 24-year-old dragged Team Ireland out of a bottomless pit of recrimination when his glorious performance clinched Ireland's only medal of the 28th Olympiad.
The Minister for Sport had left the Greek capital the night before and so missed Irish show jumping's first Olympic medal win, but both Olympic Council of Ireland president Pat Hickey and Irish Sports Council chief executive John Treacy - who had been girding their loins to face the firing squad when they got home - were on hand to see the victory.
Now Team Ireland and its bevy of officials will arrive home in Dublin this afternoon basking in the reflected gleam of a gold medal.
Not alone was O'Connor's gold the sole Irish medal in Athens, but the show jumpers were the only Irish athletes to come within a sniff of the hardware. And, even more incredibly, two of O'Connor's team-mates also came desperately close to taking their own place on the medal podium in Markopoulo last Friday.
After last Tuesday's team decider, Kevin Babington seemed to be the great white hope, but when he hit two fences in Friday's opening round and disappeared from the frame, Jessica Kuerten shot into the limelight with a clear that left her sharing the lead with Britain's Nick Skelton.
Kuerten, too, had the top step of the podium within her sights, but confidence was already dented when her mare stopped out in the warm-up arena and all hope of a medal was wiped out when Castle Forbes Maike hit a catastrophic five fences.
O'Connor, jumping eighth from the end, had already staked his claim to a medal by then and, when Skelton also crashed and burned with three fences down, suddenly it was gold and the celebrations could begin in earnest.
His father, Tadhg O'Connor, was leading the cheering in the stands, along with Cian's mother, Louise Mullen, daughter of rugby legend Karl, and O'Connor's two sisters, 26-year-old Susanna and 20-year-old Philippa. But champagne wasn't on the menu for O'Connor, whose teetotalism meant Coke was the beverage of choice. His mother and sisters flew back to Dublin on Saturday.
In an eerily psychic moment, Louise Mullen had bought a book entitled Olympic Champions for her son the week before in Athens. And she carries a photo in her purse of an eight-year-old Cian dancing towards the camera wearing a T-shirt with the words "Gold medallist" emblazoned across the chest.
Some 16 years on and O'Connor had a real gold medal on his chest last Friday night and the picture in Saturday's The Irish Times of her son biting that medal - just like the gold coins in the Christmas stocking he loved as a child - drew an instant reaction from his mother. "I'm glad I spent the money on his teeth. He cost me a fortune in dental fees."
Louise Mullen got a foretaste of the type of reception her son will get - both on the way home and on his arrival on Saturday - when she was greeted on Aer Lingus flight EI 175 from Heathrow with a personal message. "I gather that Olympic gold medallist Cian O'Connor's mam is on the flight with us today," captain Shane Moran announced, to huge applause from the rest of the passengers.
But, before meeting his fans this afternoon, O'Connor has been relaxing in Athens and visited the main Olympic stadium on Saturday night to watch the athletics. "It was fantastic," he said yesterday. "It was the first time I'd been in the stadium. I missed the opening ceremony because the horse hadn't left home then and I wanted to make sure he was alright."
O'Connor and his 19-year-old girlfriend, Rachel Wyse, have been staying in the upmarket Hotel Grand Bretagne on Syntagma Square, courtesy of the Olympic Council of Ireland.
"I've just been chilling out," he said. "I took Crystal out on Saturday morning for a walk in hand and a pick of grass and he's delighted with himself."
With three horses suffering serious tendon injuries during the show jumping in Markopoulo, O'Connor reports Waterford Crystal's legs show no ill-effects from his exertions.
The horse, which is owned by a syndicate made up of Sir Anthony O'Reilly and his wife, Chryss, Independent News and Media and Waterford Crystal, won't be back in Ireland until the middle of this week. But his rider will be the focus of attention when he arrives home at 2.20 this afternoon. A civic reception, an invitation to Áras an Uachtaráin and an open-top bus tour through Dublin are also planned.
