Team Ireland’s Shane Sweetnam with James Kann Cruz, and Daniel Coyle with Legacy, both missed out on the medal jump-off in the show jumping final at the Palace of Versailles this morning.
Running a brilliant PB Sophie O’Sullivan narrowly missed out on qualifying for the 1500m semi-finals by just one spot, finishing 7th in her heat, and will now race the repechages tomorrow.
Team mate Sarah Healy will also contest those repechages after she also finished 7th in her 1500m heat just pipped for the last qualification place on the line.
In the repechages of the women’s 400m Sophie Becker and Sharlene Mawdsley missed out on advancing to the semi-finals with second and third place finishes respectively. Both will be back on Friday in the heats of the women’s 4x400m relay.
Team Ireland diver Jake Passmore, on his Olympic debut finished the preliminaries of the men’s 3m Springboard in 21st overall; only the top 18 advanced to the semi-finals.
EQUESTRIAN
It was not to be for Irish showjumpers Shane Sweetnam and Daniel Coyle in a nail-biting individual show jumping final in Versailles, on a course which proved demanding that only three riders of 30 finalists managed to go clear.
Ireland’s pair had qualified third and second respectively to today’s decider, leaving them in the last three riders to go and they needed clean rounds to force a jump-off for the medals. Coyle’s medal hopes came unstuck when his mare Legacy lost a shoe and he lost a stirrup.
They were still clear until the difficult final line but he clipped the second and had three more down and the 30-year-old Derry man retired his horse at that point, who had served him so brilliantly with three previous clear rounds in Paris.
Coyle was equally proud of his horse: “Unfortunately we picked the worst day not to jump clear. We saw the world number one come off his horse in spectacular fashion, that just showed that the Olympics is a different game, but I’m very happy and proud of how we performed. It’s just the end of the week, we were all tired and there wasn’t much left to give.”
Sweetnam and James Kann Cruz; his 11-year-old grey gelding known as ‘Gizmo’ started and finished well but came unstuck early at the 5th and finished with 12 faults, in 22nd place.
Afterwards he said: He tried his best but I’d say the tank was a little bit empty after four big rounds in six days. He got a second wind and finished the course brilliantly, I’m very proud of him and our entire team. He’s done us proud and hopefully we’ll be back again in Los Angeles
“The course was the biggest I’ve ever seen and 15 jumps, which I’ve never seen before. The course designer obviously did a great job as there were just three people (in a jump-off) for the medals which is great sport and exactly what you’d expect in an Olympic final.”
Both Irish men will compete in the Dublin Horse Show in two weeks but will rest their Olympic horses now. Of the three men in the jump-off to decide the finals only Germany’s Christian Kukuk managed to go clear a second time to win gold on a monumentally difficult course.
ATHLETICS
Sophie O’Sullivan produced the performance of her life to finish seventh in her heat of the Women’s 1500m on day 11 of the Olympic Games in Paris. The Ballymore/Cobh AC athlete clocked a time of 4:00.23 to move to fourth on the Irish all-time list for the event, just missing out on a semi-final spot by one place.
O’Sullivan will now have to race again in tomorrow’s repechage but can take plenty of confidence from her performance this morning.
“I knew I was pretty fit and I am good when it matters. I was really surprised, I thought we were going way slower. I thought I had it with 200m to go, and I just got caught up behind someone and tripped a little bit. I got going again but it was enough to lose a little bit too much,” she said.
Sarah Healy finished in the exact same position in her heat of the event and will, like O’Sullivan, have to prepare now for the repechage tomorrow. The 23-year-old crossed the line in 4:02.91 and admitted post-race that she was “confused” by her performance.
“I’m really disappointed. I didn’t feel very good and then I tied up at the end which has now happened to me twice so I’m like, ‘what’s going on?’ It’s really hard. I came into this in such great shape and I should have been able to do that comfortably. I was hanging on to sixth, I was trying my best and had I known there was someone right there I probably could have hung on for that sixth spot,” she said.
O’Sullivan will run in the first of the two repechages tomorrow with Healy in the second. Only the top three across the line in each repechage will book a spot in the semi-finals.
Sharlene Mawdsley and Sophie Becker also both failed to advance to the semi-finals of the Women’s 400m following their repechage heats. Mawdsley finished third in her race in 51.18, down on the personal best she had ran the day before, while Becker clocked the second fastest time of her career, 51.28, to finish second in her heat.
“It was fine, I’d have had to run a PB to have qualified and I did that yesterday, which was annoying. I think I ran everyone else’s race bar my own which is disappointing, but I’m not too disappointed. It’s the Olympic Games. I’m showing up when it counts,” Mawdsley said.
Becker was also satisfied with her efforts. Herself and Mawdsley will return to action in the Women’s 4x400m Relay on Friday.
“I produced my second fastest time ever; I can’t be greedy. The perfectionist in me wants more but I have to be happy with that. I’ll rest up tonight, shake out tomorrow and then meet with the relay on Thursday. You can’t dwell on this race too long,” she said.
DIVING
Jake Passmore came agonisingly close to making the semi-final in the Men’s 3M Springboard on his Olympic debut in Paris this morning. With a total score of 360.90, Passmore was just 2.25 points off the top eighteen qualification for the semi-final, ultimately placing 21st overall.
The youngest competitor in the field, Passmore started with a forward 3 ½ somersaults, which would turn out to be his highest scoring dive with 68.20 points. The 19-year-old was consistent in the first four dives adding scores of 64.50, 63.00 and 66.30 for dives two, three and four putting himself right in contention at 11th place overall.
Mistakes however in dives five and six cost Passmore with scores of 49.40 and 49.50 moving him down the rankings and just outside the qualification places. Passmore has just completed his first year in the senior diving ranks and can take huge experience from his first Games.
Asked how he felt after the preliminaries Passmore said: “I don’t really know, mixed emotions, could have been better, could have been worse, but I can’t really expect anything from my first Olympics, hopefully I’ve got a few more in the tank. It didn’t feel like it was going great, but it didn’t feel like it was going bad, just steady which is all I can really ask for.”
LATER
SAILING
Carlow’s Finn Lynch (National Yacht Club) will contest the top ten medal race of the Men’s Dinghy in Marseilles having qualified in 10th place. In the Medal Race the course is shorter and the points scored are doubled, and added to the series points to decide the final standings. Based on the current standings the best possible outcome for Lynch would be an eighth place finish.
TRACK CYCLING
Team Ireland’s women’s pursuit team of Mia Griffin, Lara Gillespie, Kelly Murphy, and Alice Sharpe will being their Olympic campaign at the Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome in the qualifying round. This is the first time Ireland has ever qualified in team pursuit at the Olympics.
In Team Pursuit each team of four riders does a 16-lap time trial to create seedings for head-to-heads. Only the top eight go through to the next stage, and following that, only the two fastest teams compete for gold and silver, with the next two fastest competing for bronze, and similarly for 5th-8th places.
TONIGHT
BOXING
Regardless of the outcome of tonight’s women’s lightweight (60kg) Olympic final, Kellie Harrington has already made history by becoming the only Irish boxer ever to contest back-to-back Olympic finals, and the first Irish woman to win medals at two Olympic Games.
The much-anticipated women’s 60kg final between reigning Olympic champion Harrington and the number one seed in the division; Wenlu Yang of China, is the last bout on the cards at the spectacular Roland Garros Stadium tonight (10.06pm Irish time).
The pair have only ever met once before; in the World Championship final back in 2016 when both were fighting at 64kg, with the Chinese fighter the victor on that occasion. Yang is the number one seed in Paris based on her 2023 Asian Games win.
RESULTS DAY 11 – MONDAY 6TH AUGUST 2024
Diving, 3m Springboard preliminary, Jake Passmore, score of 360.90, 21st overall, does not progress
Equestrian, Show jumping, Individual Final, Shane Sweetnan,12 pen in 82.03, 22nd overall
Equestrian, Show jumping, Individual Final, Daniel Coyle, Retired during final round, 25th overall
Athletics, Women’s 1500m, Round 1, Sarah Healy, 7th in heat in 4:02.91,through to repechage tomorrow
Athletics, Women’s 1500m, Round 1, Sophie O’Sullivan, 7th in heat in 4:00.23 PB, through to repechage tomorrow
Athletics, Women’s 400m, Repechage, Sophie Becker,2nd in rep in 51.28, does not progress
Athletics, Women’s 400m, Repechage, Sharlene Mawdsley, 3rd in rep in 51.18, does not progress
