How many Olympic medals for Ireland? Eight seems likely. Nine is realistic. Ten is doable

Throw away the green-tinted lens and cast a cold, objective eye over the Irish squad depth and one quickly realises that a record medal haul is not just possible, but highly probable

Gymnast Rhys McClenaghan during a Paris 2024 team announcement for gymnastics. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

Barring disaster – illness, injuries or just plain old bad luck – the die looks cast: Ireland is about to have its best ever Olympics.

Now, this isn’t patriotism or optimism or downright delusion. Throw away the green-tinted lens and cast a cold, objective eye over the depth and diversity of talent in the Irish ranks and one quickly realises that a record medal haul is not just possible, but highly probable.

And look, we know what you’re thinking: Jesus, Mary and Joseph, don’t be saying stuff like that and tempting fate. Granted, it’s not really in the Irish psyche to call your shot and then swish it right through. Best to play down expectations, reject any potential notions, and not let the world see them coming.

But to do so would be to deny what’s likely coming down the tracks in Paris. Those in the high performance circles know it, just as athletes and journalists and those who will make odds on this in the coming weeks – whose jobs depend on knowing probabilities – do too. Slice it and dice it any way you want. Mix it, flip it, then lay it back on the table. The picture still looks the same: Ireland has never been in as good of a position ahead of the biggest show on earth.

In 22 editions of the Games since Ireland first started competing as an independent nation, 100 years ago, it’s won a grand total of 35 medals – an average of 1.6 per Games. In the six editions this century, it’s won 16 medals, an average of 2.6 per Games. The best ever medal haul came in London 2012 – the closest Ireland will ever get to a home Olympics – where they won six.

But the reality ahead of Paris? If Ireland wins seven medals, it will be a disappointment. A failure?

No, we can’t remotely say that. But the biggest ever Irish team is going to this Games with, by some distance, the largest ever number of rock-solid, realistic medal chances. Some will fail. Some will flourish. That’s always the way. But never has this country taken aim with such a wealth of sporting firepower.

Boxer Aoife O'Rourke, left, and training partner Isabella McLoughlin during the Team Ireland Open Training Day ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the National Indoor Arena on the Sport Ireland Campus in Dublin. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

They travel not in hope but expectation, aware of all that can go wrong but having no trace of the inferiority complex that infused many teams of the past. This team will not be happy to be there.

They can and they should and they will win medals – lots of them.

How many? Eight seems likely. Nine is realistic. Ten is doable. Eleven or more is ambitious, but not at all impossible. Do not adjust your sets. Yes, Ireland won four medals at the last Games in Tokyo: two in rowing, two in boxing. But three years on, things have changed utterly across Irish Olympic sports.

Some things have stayed the same, of course. Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy remain the men to beat in rowing’s lightweight sculls. Fellow Olympic champion Kellie Harrington will also take some serious stopping in boxing’s lightweight division. But the back-up for the above trio this time is so much stronger. Daire Lynch and Phillip Doyle have a strong medal chance in the double sculls, as do Aifric Keogh and Fiona Murtagh in the women’s pair.

A record 10 Irish boxers will compete at the Games, each of them just three wins away from a medal, and Nielsen’s Gracenote Virtual Medal Table – which has a good record at this sort of thing – recently predicted Ireland would win three boxing medals in total: gold for Harrington, with bronze for Daina Moorehouse and Aoife O’Rourke.

In Rhys McClenaghan, Ireland has the world’s best pommel horse practitioner, and while it all went pear-shaped for the Newtownards gymnast at the Tokyo Games – he caught a finger on the pommel’s handle in the Olympic final and fell off the horse – he goes to Paris as the two-time world champion. If he executes his routine well in the final, it’s not a matter of whether he gets a medal.

It’s about which colour.

Paul O'Donovan, left, and Fintan McCarthy during the Rowing Team Ireland Paris 2024 team announcement at the National Rowing Centre in Cork. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

In swimmer Daniel Wiffen, Ireland has the reigning world champion over 800m and 1500m, and while there were some notable absentees from that event earlier this year, he will nonetheless not be far away at the business end of either race in Paris.

In equestrian, Ireland’s showjumping team of Shane Sweetnam, Daniel Coyle and Cian O’Connor, along with alternate Bertram Allen, will be devastated if they fall short of a podium finish, having recently taken a dominant win in the five-star Aachen Nations Cup. Gold is possible. A podium finish is highly probable.

Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Leona Maguire and Stephanie Meadow will fly the flag in golf, with McIlroy involved in a seven-man playoff for bronze at the last Games in Tokyo. Le Golf National, host of the 2018 Ryder Cup, is a course he knows well where he could put a nice shine on a difficult summer.

Ireland sends two teams into action in rugby sevens and the men look capable of contending for a medal, having secured qualification much earlier than they did before the Tokyo Games and with Hugo Keenan added to their ranks in recent months.

Then there’s athletics, where Ireland hasn’t won a medal in 12 years, dating back to Rob Heffernan’s belated bronze from London after Russia’s Sergey Kirdyapkin – who crossed the line in first the 50km race walk – was disqualified for doping. The wait for a track medal goes back twice as long, to Sonia O’Sullivan’s 5000m silver at Sydney 2000.

But that wait could be about to end. Both Ciara Mageean and Rhasidat Adeleke go to Paris after finishing fourth in their respective world finals last year. Mageean enjoyed a blazing start to the summer, winning European 1500m gold in Rome, but a couple of below-par runs of late, coupled with the rising standard in her event, means few will expect a medal. 

Daniel Wiffen of Ireland during the men's 800m freestyle final at the 60th Sette Colli Meet, Stadio del Nuoto, Rome. Picture: ©INPHO/Antonietta Baldassarre

The story is different for Adeleke, who’s been in sparkling form in recent weeks and who looks primed to go below the 49- second barrier and, at just 21, take her place on an Olympic podium. Should she also line up the mixed relay at the start of the athletics programme, Ireland will be serious medal contenders there.

Not that anything is a given at this level, where one bad day could mean a four-year wait to make amends. Still, the picture looks undeniably bright, and it’s based on facts, results.

“The opportunity for success in Paris is underpinned by all those European medals, world medals,” says Niamh O’Sullivan, Sport Ireland’s Director of High Performance. “So we're kind of getting optimistic based on facts, which is that we have a lot of world champions and a lot of European medalists in the system.” She notes the medal haul predicted by Gracenote of nine would require “100% execution”, adding: “High performance is fragile and human beings are fragile. There's things that are going to happen in Paris and things that we won't expect on the good side and things that we won't expect on the disappointment side.” 

Either way, it’ll make for one hell of a ride.