‘Everything is a bonus from here’ as Thomas Barr chases the dream in Olympic final

Whisper it gently, for fear of jinxing it, but this could be happening: An Irish sprinter on an Olympic podium.

Thomas Barr enters this afternoon’s 400m hurdles final, held at 4pm Irish time, with the third fastest time of the eight finallists this year.

The last man to do it was Bob Tisdall at the Los Angeles Games in 1932, and after Barr’s heat on Monday we told him just how long a streak of history he had defied. “That’s crazy,” he said. “I have to follow in his footsteps now.”