Ireland celebrates first Olympic medal as women's four rowing crew delivers bronze

Aifric Keogh, Eimear Lambe, Fiona Murtagh, and Emily Hegarty have won Ireland's first medal of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

Ireland's Aifric Keogh, Eimear Lambe, Fiona Murtagh and Emily Hegarty celebrate with their bronze medals. Picture: INPHO/Morgan Treacy

It’s maybe a year since Aifric Keogh, Eimear Lambe, Fiona Murtagh, and Emily Hegarty began to gel as a women’s four. Maybe. This morning, they franked a superb run of form by claiming a bronze medal under a burning sun.

It is Ireland’s first podium place of these Games but surely not the last with this very venue likely to see further joy for this world-class rowing operation when Sanita Puspure and the dup of Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy take to the waters in the women’s single sculls and men’s lightweight double sculls respectively.