How the Irish fared in Munich: Podiums and positives aplenty, but still some feelings of regret

Ireland’s Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy celebrate with their gold medals after the  Lightweight Double Sculls Final A at the European Championships in Munich.

More than a few Irish athletes voiced their enthusiasm for Munich’s multi-sport championships this summer. Rhys McClenaghan saw it as a means of instilling a ‘Team Ireland’ ethos that could build towards Paris 2024. Jenny Egan-Simmons was thrilled at the spotlight it would shine on the minority sports.

If there were other unifying threads to it all then those were the hopes and dreams everyone arrived with. Some achieved them, others probably went beyond them, but there is always the cohort for whom the reality doesn’t live up to the anticipation and that held here much the same as it does everywhere else in sport.

The sense that Irish athletics is on the cusp of something big was captured by the silver and bronze medals Ciara Mageean and Mark English won, and by the 5th and 6th place finishes from Rhasidat Adeleke and Israel Olatunde in sprint events that were never on the map before. Eleven top-eight finishes made for a record in itself at these championships.

There was also the gnawing regret that Ireland had just come up short a few times and the same held true on the water where the rowing team claimed a gold and a silver but recorded three fourth-place finishes in their other finals. Cycling delivered eight top tens from 14 races but couldn’t make a podium.

The failure of McClenaghan, or any of his teammates, to make a final in the men’s artistic gymnastics was a huge disappointment while Egan-Simmons couldn’t quite build on her World Championship bronze in Canada from two weeks ago with a European equivalent or better.

Riding high

Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy hadn’t been in the boat together a wet week this year thanks to the former man’s medical studies but they remain unbeatable in the men’s lightweight double sculls having hoovered up gold medals at European, World and Olympic levels. They were the closest we had to a sure thing in Munich and they delivered.

The women’s four had served up a bronze medal at last year’s Olympics but Eimear Lambe and Aifric Keogh had since seen Tara Hanlon and Natalie Long replace Emily Hegarty and Fiona Murtagh. The new quartet’s reward here was a silver medal behind Great Britain and there is clearly more to come from them.

Ciara Mageean made it clear that she came here to medal and to drape a tricolour around her neck and, while a silver behind Laura Muir repeated her showing from the Commonwealth Games, she gave a display here that screamed class and defiance. Superb display from an athlete that is only getting better at 30 years of age.

Eight years after his bronze medal at one European outdoors and Mark English delivered another. The 29-year posted three drama-free and composed performances throughout the week and only the world indoor champion and the world 1,500m champion stood between him and the top step.

Athletes talk about bringing your best to major gigs. Well, Israel Olatunde ran the three fastest races of his life at these European Championships. One of them was a national record for the 100m. Sixth in the final, and still only 20 years of age, Olatunde has the temperament and the talent to go much further again.

By the time she wrapped her week up in the final of the women’s 4x400m relay Rhasidat Adeleke had signed off on a season that stretched to 51 races. An incredible schedule that ended on a high with her fifth spot in the final of the women’s 400m - where she threatened a medal.

Ten years on from breaking his neck in a motocross accident and Ryan Henderson was flipping and spinning his way through the qualifiers and into the finals of the men’s BMX freestyle. Quite the journey. The first Irish rider to appear at a major championships, his eyes are set firmly on Paris in 2024.

Hitting the bar.

Sam Bennett has endured a frustrating spell of it, what with injuries and his absence from this summer’s Tour de France, but he came close to medalling in the men’s road race. Ultimately, he was left to rue one split decision on the sprint in but those are the margins at that level. A sixth place finish and he has built on it brilliantly in the Vuelta a España.

The hope was that this was to be Fionnuala McCormack‘s time in the women’s marathon. One of the favourites for a medal, the 37-year old stuck with the breakaway pack of leaders for most of the race but fell off with roughly seven kilometres to go. One of those days, as she said herself.

Margaret Cremen finished eighth in the women’s lightweight double sculls in Tokyo. She had Aoife Casey for company that day but Lydia Heaphy was with her this time and the two of them came within a whisker of claiming a bronze medal. It’s only a handful of months that they have been operating together. More to come, in all likelihood.

Falling short.

Rhys McClenaghan is a former European champion and a world bronze medallist. He was disappointed with silver in the men’s pommel horse at the Commonwealth Games last month but worse was to follow as a poor routine in the qualifiers saw him fall short of a place in the final.

Illness cost Sanita Puspure the chance to go for a medal in the single sculls in Tokyo last year and it put paid to another campaign here. This time it had implications for her double sculls partner Zoe Hyde and for the women’s eight crew, both boats being pulled from the regatta. Unfortunate.

If the performance of the Irish athletics team was uplifting in the broadest sense then there were always going to be disappointed individuals. Phil Healy, Sarah Healy and John Fitzsimons were among those to fall short of their own expectations. So did Chris O’Donnell who failed to make the 400m final having targeted a medal.