Ireland needs to build on team success for next Olympiad in Rio

AMID all the deserved celebration, there has to be some sober and hard-headed analysis of our Olympic performance.

I’m not saying that to be negative, but because it needs to be said.

Like hundreds of thousands of other Irish people, I’m a sports fan. I never heard of something called Laser Radial sailing before the Olympics, but that didn’t stop me from cheering myself hoarse for Annalise Murphy during her medal race, or cursing the system that allowed her to perform so brilliantly for a week and then have to rely on a single race and the luck of a gust of wind. And poor old Rob Heffernan in the 50k walk — a genuine hero, he smashed the national record by a mile, and had to settle for fourth.