Erin Riordan poised for Paris Olympics just months after retirement

It’s almost unheard of for a nation to pull out of an Olympic relay but Ireland’s quartet got a belated call to say that the Japanese team had not met their own national standards and would not be travelling.

LATE CALL UP: Swimmer Erin Riordan during the Team Ireland Paris 2024 team announcement for Aquatics at the National Aquatic Centre on the Sport Ireland Campus in Dublin. Picture: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

Heard the one about the Irish swimmer going to the Paris Olympic who retired just a few months ago? Erin Riordan’s story is a prime example of truth trumping any manner of fiction.

It looked like Ireland’s 400m freestyle relay team had missed the boat after being edged agonisingly into a ranking of 17th on the back of the World Championships in Doha at the start of the year. That left them one slot outside the cutoff point. One.