As it happened: Team Ireland at the Paris Olympics - Day One
CLASS ACT: Ireland's Rhys McClenaghan performing his routine on the Pommel Horse. Pic: Peter Byrne, PA Wire.
Nhat Nguyen secured a hard-fought 2-1 win over his Israeli opponent in the opening Group P badminton clash at the Porte de la Chapelle Arena.
Dubliner Nguyen, competing at his second Olympic Games, won the first game against Misha Zilberman 21-17. Zilberman then took the second game 21-19.
The deciding game saw the 24-year-old show great composure to close out the match 21-13.
Nguyen returns to action on Monday to face 172-ranked Prince Dehal of Nepal who lost 2-0 earlier on Saturday to world number two, Viktor Den Axelson of Denmark.
9.30am start Equestrian – Eventing Cross Country – team and individual, Sarah Ennis, Susie Berry, Austin O’ConnorÂ
9.40am Rowing, Women’s Pair (W2-), Fiona Murtagh & Aifric Keogh (heat2/3)Â
10am Rowing, Men’s Pair (M2-), Ross Corrigan & Nathan Timoney (heat 3/3)Â
10.16am Boxing, Men’s 71kg, Prelims (Rd of 32), Aidan Walsh V Traore (FRA)Â
10.27am Swimming, Women’s 100m Breaststroke, Mona McSharry (heat 5/5)Â
10.30am Rowing, Women’s Lightweight Double Sculls (LW2x), Margaret Cremen & Aoife Casey (heat 1/3)Â
11.20am Rowing, Men’s Lightweight Double Sculls (LM2x), Paul O’Donovan & Fintan McCarthy (heat 3/3)Â
11.40am Women’s Four, Emily Hegarty, Natalie Long, Eimear Lambe & Imogen Magner (heat 2/2)Â
2.30pm Women’s Rugby Sevens, Pool B, Ireland V Great BritainÂ
2.45pm Sailing, Men’s Skiff, races 1,2&3, Robert Dickson and Seán WaddiloveÂ
4.22pm Boxing, Women’s 66kg, Grainne Walsh V Anna Luca Hamori (HUN)Â
6pm Women’s Rugby Sevens, Pool B, Ireland v South AfricaÂ
7.16pm Boxing, Men’s 92kg, Prelims (Rd of 32), Jack Marley V Mateusz Bereznicki (POL)Â
8.10pm Women’s 100m Breaststroke semi-finals, Mona McSharry *Dependant on progression
Rhys McClenaghan has coasted into the Olympic final of the men’s pommel horse after a composed performance at Arena Bercy in Paris on Saturday night, the two-time world champion netting a score of 15.200 in his qualification round.
That was the joint top score of the day, alongside USA’s Stephen Nedoroscik 15.200.Â
The 25-year-old Newtownards gymnast set a relatively modest difficulty score – for him – of 6.300 and nailed its execution, given an outstanding 8.900 which added up to his final tally.
McClenaghan will line up for his second straight Olympic final next Saturday where he will again go up against two-time Olympic pommel horse champion Max Whitlock of Britain, who qualified with 15.166.
McClenaghan faced heartbreak at the last Olympics in Tokyo, going into the men’s pommel final as one of the medal favourites before catching a finger on the pommel’s handle and falling off the horse, resulting in a seventh-place finish.
Ireland have finished sixth in the men’s rugby sevens after losing 17-7 to New Zealand in the fifth-place playoff at the Stade de France.
A converted Chay Mullins try gave Ireland a 7-5 lead but it wasn’t to be as the Kiwis scored a second and third try after the interval.
Corkonian Austin O’Connor with Colorado Blue scored Ireland’s best Eventing score of the day with a 31.7 for his dressage test to leave Ireland on a total of 102.7 and in 11th place in the team event, with tomorrow’s cross country and Monday’s show jumping phases to come.
Afterwards O’Connor, who is competing in his fourth Olympics, said: “I was trying to break the 30 barrier, but it’s improved eight marks from Tokyo, and I think a lot of his work was real quality. A few of the changes didn’t quite come off as we’d hoped but other than that he didn’t put a foot wrong. He tried his best, and bring on tomorrow.
With rain falling throughout the day in Versailles, softer underfoot conditions on the cross country course will play a role tomorrow, and it is a test O’Connor is relishing: “We look ahead now to tomorrow – the ground is getting nice and soft and it’s going to change the complexity of competition a bit so hopefully the blood horses will come to the fore – that’s the plan anyway.
“It’s going to be a tough test – the designer is a very clever course designer. Fair but clever, and it will be intense. It’s nine minutes, it’s going to be quick. It will be good safe ground, on the softer side, and it will suit some horses better than others.”
Liam Jegou advanced to the semi-finals of the C1 canoe slalom after what he called “probably the hardest day I’ve had on the water in my life” at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium in Paris.
The 26-year-old was the 16th and final man to advance to the Olympic semi-final after clocking 99.93 seconds down the whitewater course on his second run. Earlier in the day he’d finished 17th of the 20 competitors in his first run, clocking 102.67 seconds. But with only his fastest time counting for the overall standings, his second run proved enough to move on to Monday’s semi-final, something he also achieved at the Tokyo Olympics, finishing 15th.
“That was such a tough day,” he said. “In the first run, I was alright at the top but pushing everything and I just gassed out at the bottom and it was really poor technically all around. The second run was a bit better, I pushed a lot harder to get closer with the raw time, but what a tough day.
“We analysed what happened in the first run (between rounds), remobilised and just kept the head up, focusing on what was in front of us. I’ll find something (for the semi-final) because today is not going to cut it.”Â
Madison Corcoran came up short of qualification in the women’s K1 slalom, the 21-year-old a long way adrift of the top-22 times that advanced to the semi-final, finishing 24th of 25.
On her Olympic debut, she had a first run to forget, missing the seventh gate and incurring a 50-second time penalty, heaping the pressure on her second effort.Â
In that run, she incurred two penalties for having contact with gates, each costing her two seconds and giving her a finishing time of 115.93 seconds, which left her nine seconds adrift of what she needed to advance.
Fifteen years after his first appearance for Ireland, Ryan Mullen made his Olympic debut in the Men’s Individual Time Trial finishing an outstanding twelfth place; notably Ireland’s best ever result in the event.
Racing 32.4km around a rain-soaked Paris, Mullen finished in 37:57.16 just 1 minute 45 seconds behind newly crowned Olympic Champion Remco Evenepoel of Belgium (36:12.16).
Speaking after the race the 29-year-old said; “It was a slippery city centre circuit, it was just about managing risk and trying to deliver the power where it was feasible, feasible being a big underlined word there, because you couldn’t put power everywhere for risk of losing your backend or frontend.
“I did what I could, I took the risk where I felt I could, I backed off where I felt like it wasn’t worth taking the risk, because like I said, I didn’t want to come all the way to Paris, after 15 years in the making of getting here to lie down on a roundabout somewhere so being safe and taking the calculated risk was the most important thing today and you just deliver the best ride you could do in the safest way possible.”Â
Mullen returns to action in the Men’s Road Race on the 3rd August.
Ireland's ten-strong boxing team endured a tough start to their programme at the Paris Srena Nord with lightweight Dean Clancy losing his first ever Olympic bout to experienced Jordanian Obada Al Kasbeh on a split decision.
The Sligo man took time to find his feet and the judges went 4-1 in his opponent's favour in the first round. Clancy improved after that without ever coming to grips with a rough and ready and wily opponent.
Al Kasbeh was deducted a point in the third round which was the break Clancy needed after winning the second 3-2 but he didn't do quite enough to swing the decision his way in front of a raucous crowd on boxing's opening day.
Dean Clancy faces Obada Alkasbeh of Jordan at 4.22pm Irish time.
Ireland’s men’s sevens team will face New Zealand in a fifth-place playoff after eking out a tight 17-14 win over the USA at the Stade de France.
The Irish side saw their medal hopes disappear with a quarter-final loss to Fiji on Thursday but they rebounded with a win-at-the-death courtesy of a trademark piece of magic by Terry Kennedy with almost an extra minute played at the end of the second-half.
Hugo Lennox had started the scoring with a converted try but the Americans hit back with two seven-pointers of their own, one in either half, with Aaron Cummings and Perry Baker providing the converted touchdowns to leave them 14-7 ahead.
Zac Ward who has been superb in this tournament, struck back for Ireland to leave them 12-14 adrift before Kennedy came up with the game-defining moment. Ireland and New Zealand meet in Saint-Denis later today.
Liam Jegou made a disappointing start to his Olympic campaign in the men’s canoe slalom at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium in Paris this afternoon, the 26-year-old finishing his first run as the 17th fastest of the 20 competitors.
The top 16 will advance to the semi-finals, but Jegou has a chance to make amends in his second run later today, with the best of his two times counting for the overall heat standings. That series gets under way at 4.10pm Irish time.
He got off to a solid start on the whitewater course but conceded major ground to his rivals in the middle section, avoiding any penalties as he navigated through the 23 gates but taking far too much time to do so, clocking 102.67 seconds. Jegou, who finished 15th at the last Olympics in Tokyo, cut a frustrated figure at the finish, with one run now remaining to rescue his Olympic hopes and to elevate himself inside the top-16.
Everything you need to know about the XXXIII Olympiad and when the Irish athletes are competing.
Ireland’s women’s 4x100m freestyle relay team of Danielle Hill, Grace Davison, Erin Riordan and Victoria Catterson finished eight in their heat on the opening day of the swimming meet at Paris 2024.
The time of 3:42.67 was just under a second outside the national record of 2:41.75 but it would have taken an enormous leap for the quartet to make it through the heats with Italy, the last of the eight to make the final, clocking 3:37.33.
Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch got Ireland’s rowers off to a strong start at the Olympics by taking a comfortable win in the heats of the men’s double sculls at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium in Paris this morning.
Shortly after, Zoe Hyde and Alison Bergin finished third in the heats of the women’s double sculls to advance to the semi-finals.
Link to the full article below.
Ireland’s men’s hockey team endured a tough opening day with a 2-0 Group B defeat to reigning Olympic champions Belgium at the Stade Yves-Du-Manoir where the majority of the 1924 Games were held.
Mark Tumilty’s team had beaten Belgium twice back in May in the FIH Pro League but that was an experimental Belgian side. This was a different ask and the underdogs, while gritty, were always up against it.
Tom Boon opened the scoring after 25 minutes with a shot that was essentially deflected twice before flying past a helpless Davy Harte who, as always, was a superb last line of defence for this Irish team.
Ireland responded well with a brief period of pressure but efforts from Jeremy Duncan and Daragh Walsh couldn’t force an equaliser before the break and the favourites resumed their dominance in the second-half.
Alexander Hendrickx doubled the lead from a penalty corner at the start of the fourth quarter and continued to push from there to finish. Next up for Ireland, on Monday, is an Australian side that secured a silver medal in Tokyo.
Ellen Walshe was the first of Ireland’s 12-strong swim team in action at the La Defense Arena on Saturday morning, the Dubliner failing to progress beyond the heat stages in the 100m butterfly with a time of 58.70.
The 22-year old posted a time 0.74 outside her PB of 57.96 set at last year’s Irish Open to finish 22nd out of 31 swimmers and she would have had to shave 0.07 off that personal best to squeeze through to the semi-finals.
Walshe still has the 200m individual medley, the 400m individual medley and the 4x100m medley relay to come here in Paris. China’s Yufei Zhang posted the top time, her 56.50 coming in 2.20 seconds faster than the Irish challenger.
Welcome to the Irish Examiner's Live blog on Day 1 of the Olympics in Paris.
Some of the action may have already taken place with the Ireland men's 7s rugby team suffering a disappointing loss before the opening ceremony even took place.
But today is the first day of the Games proper and our team are in position in the French capital to keep you all up to date on how the Irish athletes perform.
For your convenience, please find Team Ireland's schedule for Day 1.
Equestrian, Eventing - team and individual Dressage, Sarah Ennis
Men’s Hockey, Pool B, Ireland v Belgium
Swimming, Women’s 100m Butterfly heats, Ellen Walshe (heat2/4)
Rowing, Men’s Double Sculls (M2x), Philip Doyle & Daire Lynch (heat 3/3)
Rowing, Women’s Double Sculls (W2x), Zoe Hyde & Alison Bergin (heat 2/3)
Swimming, Women’s 4x100m Freestyle (Heat 1/2) Danielle Hill, Erin Riordan, Grace Davison & Victoria Catterson
Equestrian, Eventing - team and individual Dressage, Susie Berry
Men’s Rugby Sevens, 5th-8th placings, Ireland V USA
Canoe Slalom, Men’s C1 1st & 2nd run, Liam Jegou
Canoe Slalom, Women’s K1 1st & 2nd run, Madison Corcoran
Cycling Road, Men’s time trial, Ryan Mullen
Equestrian, Eventing - team and individual Dressage, Austin O’Connor
Boxing, Men’s 63.5kg, Prelims (Rd of 32), Dean Clancy V Obanda Alkasbeh (JOR)
Men’s Rugby Sevens, 5-6 Placing
Swimming, Women’s 100m Butterfly semi-finals, Ellen Walshe *dependant on progression
, Badminton, Men’s Singles, Group P, Nhat Nguyen v Zilberman (ISR)
Gymnastics, Men’s Pommel qualification, Rhys McClenaghan
Swimming, Women’s 4x100m Freestyle final, Danielle Hill, Erin Riordan, Grace Davison & Victoria Catterson
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
