Overview

Ireland claim 4 medals at 2024 World Rowing Championships Ireland wrapped up a successful week in the water at the 2024 World Rowing Championships in St.Catherine's, Canada with a haul of 4 medals including 2 golds and 2 bronze. The highlight of the performances came from double Olympic champion, Paul O'Donovan, who claimed his third world title in the men's senior lightweight singles category. Reigning champion Siobhán McCrohan claimed another medal in the women's senior lightweight single sculls, this time having to settle for the bronze medal behind 2022 champion and Olympic medalist, Ionela Cozmiuc of Romania. In the Under 23 category, Ireland's Ciaran Purdy and Donnacha Keeley carried on the fantastic success of Irish men's lightweight rowing by claiming gold in the lightweight double sculls. Meanwhile Brian Colsh partnered with Adam Murphy to claim the bronze in the men's heavyweight doubles sculls. There were no medals for Ireland in the under 19 categories, but they did have a few creditable results, including a 4th place finish for the junior men's quadruple sculls squad. Overall a good championships for Ireland with plenty of young blood to keep the success and momentum going into the future. World Senior Championships: Gold Men's Lightweight Single Sculls Paul O'Donovan (30) Bronze Women's Lightweight Single Sculls Siobhán McCrohan (37) World U23 Championships: Gold Men's Lightweight Double Sculls Ciaran Purdy (22), Donnacha Keeley (20) Bronze Men's Double Sculls Adam Murphy (21), Brian Colsh (22) 6th Place Men's Single Sculls Andrew Sheehan (21) 6th Place Women's Lightweight Double Sculls Sophia Monahan (19), Aine O'Mahony (22) 7th Place Men's Quadruple Sculls Shane Rafferty (19), Fergus Bryce (20), Donagh Claffey (20), Fionn O'Reilly (21) B Final (DNS) Women's Double Sculls Holly Davis (19), Grace Healy (21) 14th Place Men's Four Andrew O'Leary (19), Luke Dunleavy (21), Liam Walter (19), Rory Buckley (20) World U19 Championships: 4th Place Men's Quadruple Sculls Michael McGrath (17), Jack Rafferty (17), Rian Claffey (18), Sean Morris (18) 5th Place Men's Coxed Four Dominic Casey (18), Mattias Cogan (16), Michael Daniel Lucey (18), Evan O'Byrne (16), Luke Fitzgerald (Cox) (17) 7th Place Women's Double Sculls Anna Brennan (18), Moya Knowles (18) https://twitter.com/KieranMcC_SS/status/1827437214831140958?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1827437214831140958|twgr^9b75ba1c2576db766cd12bc22890ba27a127c529|twcon^s1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.ie%2Fsport%2Fother-sports%2Fpaul-odonovan-passionately-sings-national-anthem-after-winning-lightweight-single-sculls-final-at-world-rowing-championships%2Fa2127035969.htmlhttps://x.com/KieranMcC_SS/status/1827437214831140958 https://x.com/KieranMcC_SS/status/1827437214831140958

Israel Olatunde breaks Irish 100m National Record Israel Olatunde set a new Irish NR in the 100m at the NEB Open meeting in London this afternoon. His time of 10.12 secs (+1.7 m/s) carved 0.05 secs off his current Irish record which he set at the European Championships in Munich in 2022. Great start to the LA 2028 Olympic cycle by Olatunde . As a reminder, the automatic qualification standard for the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo is 10.00 secs so he still has a little bit to go to reach that but this is an encouraging result in what has been a difficult 2 years for Israel.

I have opened a new thread for us to track our athletes' journey in this new Olympic cycle. This week we have a chance to see some of our up and coming stars in the sport of rowing as the 2024 World Senior, U23 and U19 Championships gets underway in St.Catharine's, Canada. You can watch coverage of all the races here: https://worldrowing.com/event/2024-world-rowing-senior-under-23-under-19-championships/ Irish entries: World Senior Championships Lightweight Men's Single Sculls Paul O'Donovan World Senior Championships Lightweight Women's Single Sculls Siobhan McCrohan World U19 Championships Men's Coxed Fours Dominic Casey, Mattias Cogan, Michael Daniel Lucey, Evan O'Byrne, Luke Fitzgerald (Cox) World U19 Championships Men's Quadruple Sculls Michael McGrath, Jack Rafferty, Rian Claffey, Sean Morris World U19 Championships Women's Double Sculls Anna Brennan, Moya Knowles World U23 Championships Men's Lightweight Double Sculls Ciaran Purdy, Donnacha Keeley World U23 Championships Men's Single Sculls Andrew Sheehan World U23 Championships Men's Double Sculls Adam Murphy, Brian Colsh World U23 Championships Men's Four Andrew O'Leary, Luke Dunleavy, Liam Walter, Rory Buckley World U23 Championships Men's Quadruple Sculls Shane Rafferty, Fergus Bryce, Donagh Claffey, Fionn O'Reilly World U23 Championships Women's Lightweight Double Sculls Sophia Monahan, Aine O'Mahony World U23 Championships Women's Double Sculls Holly Davis, Grace Healy Irish Schedule today, Sunday 18th August (all time in Irish time): 14:57 U23 Women's Double Sculls Heats Holly Davis, Grace Healy 15:02 U23 Men's Double Sculls Heats Adam Murphy, Brian Colsh 15:37 U23 Men's Four Heats Andrew O'Leary, Luke Dunleavy, Liam Walter, Rory Buckley 19:45 Senior Men's LW Single Sculls Heats Paul O'Donovan 19:52 U23 Women's LW Double Sculls Heats Sophia Monahan, Aine O'Mahony 20:12 U23 Men's Quadruple Sculls Heats Shane Rafferty, Fergus Bryce, Donagh Claffey, Fionn O'Reilly 20:22 U23 Men's LW Double Sculls Heats Ciaran Purdy, Donnacha Keeley 20:39 U23 Men's Single Sculls Heats Andrew Sheehan

This thread will be our general space to discuss and post news about Team Ireland on the long road to Los Angeles 2028!

I get the impression the Government have twigged somewhat that the benefits of funding elite Olympic sport go beyond simple performance. In GB, it is no exaggeration to say it was the only good news story for several weeks, and at least on some level had a unifying effect to help counter the mob. Ireland is having a 'moment' at the moment - the visuals often spoke of a better Ireland than the one we can feel we're in. Sport has the capacity to be a rather unifying experience, especially when we have plenty of impressive Irish athletes. It's no panacea, and there are, arguably, more urgent uses for major public funds, but elite olympic sports funding is never going to be more than a drop in the overall ocean even if it's generous, and we get unifying national moments from it money can barely buy.

Well, I think there are few enough events left that we can confirm our final position on the medal table - 19th. A few wrestling finals involving Iran and Georgia fell our way this morning to keep us in the top 20. The four gold medals keeping us ahead of some countries we would normally be well behind, including Brazil as well as European countries such as Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark and Switzerland (also spare a thought for Finland who have just suffered their first ever blank at the Olympics in terms of medals). The final medal total of seven was broadly in line with what a few of us thought coming in to the games, but I know, for me anyway, the four golds was a massive overshoot. To beat our previous best in terms of both total medals and total golds in the same games is a great achievement by the team. We also had consistently strong results throughout the team outside the medal positions, with 21 Top 8 finishes and 30 Top 10 finishes. And yet, at least in terms of total medals, there's a new target there that we should absolutely be aiming to surpass again next time. On that score there seems to be rumblings of some significant funding announcements coming up. Hopefully they come to pass and we see an even better funded and prepared team in 2028. While we've made huge progress on that side of things, there's clearly so much more that needs to be done in terms of facilities, coaching and ensuring that all of our best competitors are sufficiently funded to allow them to be full time professional athletes for the next olympic cycle. 🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪

If you ignore the Americans, that race for silver and bronze between the three European teams was one for the ages. So well matches, so many brilliant young athletes in each team. heartbreaking, but it'll come, I'm sure of it. PS I think you are right about Amber, a suddenly very, very serious contender at Euro and global level going forward - I imagine Rhasidat, Amber and Femke will come to see a lot of each other over the next years!

We definitely haven't gotten any breaks in the athletics this week. All sorts of records being run in front of us to deny us medals. I felt after the second leg of the relay we just weren't far enough ahead of the Brits to hold on. The difference is the emergence of Amber Anning as an athlete capable of challenging for individual medals. She neutralises the advantage Adeleke previously gave us and their depth across the rest of their team was just enough to keep them ahead of us.

My position remains unchanged...

Some mention tonight of her getting treatment after the race as well. Officially it was put down to nothing more than tiredness, but then they would say something like that whether it was true or not. Wonder if she's maybe caught the bug that's been going around the games or whatever Ciara McGing had that nearly caused her to pull out of her event. I'm not expecting much from Wiffen in the open water, he's a pool swimmer and he'll be up against open water specialists who are targeting this as their only Olympic event, whereas it's more of an add-on for him. Better to take it as an outside shot of a bonus medal rather than coming from a position of expecting anything. And then there's the Omnium on the track on Sunday and that's really it for us as far as outside medal chances go. We're down to our last 15 or so competitors in total.

Has Wiffen any chance of medaling in the open water swim? Not hearing much about his chances?

You could be right. The RTE crowd were all saying on Monday that she was looking around because she was so comfortable but to me it seemed more like she was worried. Maybe the false start made her anxious or maybe nerves got to her and in the final she can run free. She could get the bronze or she could end up 5th. On tonight’s show Naser will get gold.

I think there's two possibilities with Adeleke here - one is that she just didn't execute that race correctly at all and there's much better in her if she can nail it tomorrow. The other, and I fear possibly the more likely situation, is that it's just not there this week - either through a recent training injury or not peaking at the right time - that she hasn't got a PB in her legs right now. Her last 200 race before the games wasn't great, so she hasn't put in a fast time in a little while. Her last 100 tonight was really leggy. It might just not be there at the moment, there might also be an injury setback that we don't know about. We'll know by Friday night. Anyway, it's the Wednesday night of the final week of the games and we are still somehow twelfth on the medal table, and we'll be there until tomorrow at least.

The NCAA season has finally caught up with Pryce. Was initially certain it would, but then less confident after her recent Diamond League run. One of the "big five" gone. Just a pity about Naser.

If she finishes fourth you wouldn't rule out her getting upgraded at some point, put it that way...

No chance of a medal on that run for Adeleke. 5th at best

Well mission accomplished for Adeleke to get into the Olympic final. But she doesn’t look in great form. And it’s doubtful she’s keeping anything in store for the final, she didn’t have much in those legs to bring her to the line. Only thing can hope is that she didn’t execute well. But tall order as we all knew to get on that podium but that race really brings it home how big the task is. But she is in the final so the first step is done

Looks like Jack Woolley will be back in business and fight in repechage, this Magomedov dude is tearing through all opposition. Awful start in the ladies golf, Jaysus

With Lavin and English avoiding the repechage and Healy and O'Sullivan bowing out today it looks like we will only have three Irish competitors in the whole of the Olympics tomorrow - the two female golfers and Kate O'Connor in the Heptathlon.

Very good runs from Mark English and Sarah Lavin this morning to progress to the semis, English looked really strong, would be amazing if he could get to the final. Defeat for Jack Woolley in the first round of the taekwondo unfortunately

Could be a case to be made for just giving the team award to the entire Olympic team at this point but that might be a bit of a cop out!

I would hope McCarthy and O’Donovan get the team award but the mixed relay European champions may get the nod. Or God forbid they give it to Armagh GAA or something

RTE sports person of the year is going to be some decision this year. O'Donovan/McCarthy should be a safe enough bet for the team award ahead of the 6 Nations winning rugby team ans the European winning mixed relay team, but how do you choose between Harrington, McClenaghan and Wiffen for the individual one? Harrington maybe just gets the nod for going back to back. Ciara Mageean's European gold medal would have her there or thereabouts most years, but this year the competition is on another level.

Sorry. Thought you meant and colour medal, mea culpa

We've never won a gold in sailing or equestrian (at least not one we were allowed to keep...)