2024 OLYMPIC GAMES – DAY 3 AFTERNOON REPORT FROM TEAM IRELAND

In Canoe Slalom double Olympian Liam Jegou put in an incredible run in the semi-final of the Men’s C1 to reach his first Olympic final an hour later where he placed an amazing seventh overall.

Defending lightweight champion Kellie Harrington impressively defeated Italian Alessia Mesiano in the last 16 to advance to the quarter-finals on Wednesday evening (31st July). Her opponent in that bout will be decided tonight.

The women’s rugby Sevens team have qualified for their first ever Olympic quarter-final against Australia at 9.30pm tonight as one of the best third placed teams following a narrow defeat by the Australians earlier in their final pool game.

In Sailing after a delayed start due to the wind conditions the Dublin duo of Robert Dickson and Seán Waddilove had a positive day on the water in Marseilles with a fourth place finish in race 4, and impressively followed that up by taking second place in race 5 with an eighth place in race 6 (yet to be officially confirmed), to end the day lying second overall in current standings behind New Zealand.

In Equestrian Austin O’Connor finished 17th overall in the individual show jumping final, after the team finished ninth overall in the three-day event at these Games.

Team Ireland’s Liam Jegou has finished seventh in the Men’s Canoe Slalom C1 final. Jegou had an incredible day on the water at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, entering the semi-finals in 16th position but posting a remarkable semi-final run to qualify for the final in sixth place.

Performing again in the final less than two hours later, the Clare native hit the exact same time as his earlier run, narrowly missing out on a silver medal after picking up a two second penalty on the second last gate. Up against the very best in the sport, Jegou has now firmly established himself amongst the world’s elite in his debut Olympic final.

A change in the positions of the gates from the heats to the semi-finals and finals provided added difficulty, but ultimately didn’t affect Jegou as he put down his two best performances on the day – when it mattered most. Gold went to France in front of a deafening home crowd, silver to Great Britain and bronze to Slovakia.

Speaking immediately after coming off the water the Clare man said: “I had a blast. That’s the best paddling I’ve produced in probably a year or two. I’m delighted that I put it down on the day that it counted, it was a really competitive run.”

Jegou’s finish was Ireland’s best since Beijing 2008 when Eoin Rheinisch was fourth in the K1 discipline, and a massive improvement on his on 15th place at his debut Olympics in Tokyo three years ago. Liam Jegou returns to action later in the week in the all-new Kayak Cross event.

Ireland’s defending lightweight boxing champion Kellie Harrington showed all her experience and class to expertly ease into the lightweight (60kg) quarter-finals  with a unanimous 5-0 victory over Italy’s Alessia Mesiano.

The Tokyo gold medallist gave a trademark masterclasses in tactical boxing, using her jab brilliantly and switching her lead regularly to pick off the Italian who came at her aggressively from the start.
Harrington got in a big early right hook to settle herself and won the first round 5:0. Her opponent caught her with a right hook at the start of the second round but she never lost her composure and went on to win all three rounds 5:0 for Ireland’s first unanimous victory at the North Paris Arena.

Asked if she had any worries about her form after suffering a rare loss at European Championships this year Harrington said: “None! You have to fall to get back up. If you didn’t get back up you may as well stay down. It’s only a loss if you don’t learn from it and hopefully I learned from it.

With just 22 boxers in Harrington’s division the thirty-four-year-old benefitted from a bye to the last 16 and is now just one bout away from fighting for a second Olympic medal. She will face either Kosovo’s Donjeta Sadiku (a bronze medallist at the 2022 World Championships), or Colombia’s 2023 World silver medallist Paola Angie Valdas Pana on Wednesday afternoon (31st July).

Ireland Women’s Sevens have qualified through to their first ever Olympic Games quarter-final after a battling performance against Australia in this afternoon’s final Pool match ensured they progressed as the best third placed team.

Allan Temple-Jones’ side pushed Australia all the way in a thrilling contest at Stade de France as Eve Higgins scored a brace of tries, and, after a nervous wait to discover the outcome of the other Pools, Ireland will now go head-to-head with this year’s HSBC SVNS Series champions Australia in an exciting quarter-final rematch at 9.30pm Irish time tonight.

Having lost to Great Britain and beaten South Africa on day one in Saint Denis, Ireland knew they needed to raise their performance level on Monday to give themselves a chance of advancing to the knockout stages, and they certainly found a response against Australia.

Despite conceding an early try, Ireland remained composed and created a number of try-scoring opportunities in the first half, with Higgins eventually crashing over under the posts for a seven-pointer. Australia came strongly out of the blocks on the restart but once again Ireland showed huge fight and resilience to stay in the contest and Higgins’ second try was just reward, with the Aussies seeing out a 19-14 win.

Commenting on the game, Head Coach Temple-Jones said: “We wanted a big response from the group after yesterday and I think we can be proud of that effort. We showed we can compete with the best teams in the world and we’ll take good confidence from our performance. Having said that, we know we need to be much better again and we’ll focus on recovery for the next couple of hours, leading into a big quarter-final tie tonight.”

Travelling reserve Amy Larn has been drafted in to the team after captain Lucy Rock was ruled out with injury sustained in the South Africa match.

After six races and two days of competition Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove sit in second position in the current standing in the Men’s Skiff event, behind New Zealand, following another excellent day on the water off the coast of Marseilles. The crews are at the halfway point in the opening series, with a medal race on Thursday. Only the top 10 ranked boats will qualify for that medal race.

The Dublin duo once again demonstrated their excellent consistency as races four, five and six took place over several hours. Dickson and Waddilove, who are competing in their second Olympic Games, placed fourth in race four to get the day off on a great footing. Their standout performance of the day followed with a second-place finish in race five. Currently it appears the pair finished eighth in race six, pending official confirmation.

After they completed all three races Waddilove said: “It was a very good day on the water again. Similar conditions to yesterday; didn’t get as much breeze as we’d hoped for abroad and we’re managing very well and happy to come away without any big discards yet.

The Olympics is kind of a special regatta, there’s a lot of hype around it and how you deal with that mentally plays a massive part in the results you get. I think in every games there is a few surprises with people who’ve performed very well up to the games and don’t perform at the games, so you have to take the opportunities when you see them.”

Dickson added: “We’re only half way through the series plus a medal race to come, so not even half way through so a lot more racing to go, but obviously, it’s great to get half way through and be in second place and have got that buffer of not really getting any big results. We’re prepared for anything and it’s meant to be a little bit windier tomorrow, and it could be a bit off the shore so it’ll be an interesting day. It feels great to be doing so well and we’re happy.”

They will return to action tomorrow for races 7, 8 and 9.

After their ninth place finish in the team competition Austin O’Connor and Colorado Blue took on the show jumping course for the second time in the individual final, where the Cork man was delighted to record an impressive clear round on his 15-year-old gelding for a 17th-place finish.

O’Connor began the day in 14th individually, and had looked on course for a clear first round until knocking poles at the final two fences. It was all put right, however, in the top 25 final as the pair never put a foot wrong and came home clear within the time to a rousing reception from the packed Versailles stands.

Reflecting on his day O’Connor said: “I’m relieved, to be honest. He showed that all the ability and the want is still there – there would have been people questioning if he was finished if he hadn’t jumped clear in the final, after the two down earlier. He had actually jumped very, very well until late on. It really was just two fences too many – basically we just didn’t get high enough over the last two and that was it, but after that, he’s shown that he’s a long way off being finished and it’s a great way to wrap Paris up.”

Ireland finished ninth of 16 nations in the overall standings, with Great Britain winning gold, hosts France in silver and Japan taking bronze, a result Team Manager Dag Albert was ultimately disappointed with:

“I’m disappointed, yes, but I’m also extremely proud of the guys – they gave everything they had to achieve the best possible result but we just didn’t get the rub of the green. We had a mountain to climb after dressage really and we felt unlucky to have been on that score at the time, and obviously Sarah’s horse getting injured sucked the life out of the team a little bit, but they are so resilient, and maintained their standards – I thought they all jumped great today.”

“It’s Susie’s first Olympics and Sarah’s mare is only 10 so she has a really bright future, and Austin is Austin – he has been delivering with Colorado Blue for a while now and is a real leader, so while I’m disappointed now, I’m still optimistic for the future with this team.”

Sligo swimmer Mona McSharry will have all Irish eyes on her tonight when she lines up in the women’s 100m breaststroke final tonight at 8.25pm Irish time. An hour beforehand fellow Irish swimmer Ellen Walshe will race in her first Olympic final; the women’s 400m Individual medley after securing her place this morning ranked seventh overall. Danielle Hill will also see action tonight when she contests the semi-finals of the 100m backstroke having made it sixteenth overall.

Also following his brilliant win in his opening game on Saturday Badminton double Olympian Nhat Nguyen will face Prince Dehal of Nepal in his second group game tonight.

The women’s rugby sevens team are the last of Team Ireland in action on day three when they face one of the tournament favourites Australia in the quarter-final.