You heard them here first - the sporting names set to make the breakthrough in 2016

Who will enter the national consciousness in 2016, and go from someone only an anorak or dedicated ‘Irish Examiner’ reader might know to a name — possibly even a face — that the casual sportsfan, even a Tubs or D’Arcy, might recognise? Here are tips offs about some names you can later brag to mates that you told them about them first.

RIO: BARR AND SOME DOUBLE-BARRELLED NAMES

For everything else that may be going on in 2016, the centrepiece of the sporting year will still be the Olympics, and as blighted and as discredited as it may be by drugs, athletics will remain its centrepiece.