Cosmo Kramer

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. 🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪

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.

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...

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.

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!

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.

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

To put it into context, it took us 96 years from first entering the Olympics in 1924 to winning gold in our fourth different sport (rowing in 2020). We've now won gold in four different sports in the space of a week. What an achievement.

Outstanding from Harrington, boxing her way to gold with a smile on her face. Delighted for Zaur as well. Four gold medals, in four different sports, in one Olympics. Ireland's greatest ever sporting achievement. We are TWELFTH in the medal table tonight.

Yeah, easily the worst session of the games for us. Even Passmore contriving to throw away a semi-final spot in the diving there. This morning has been a real throwback to the bad old days of Ireland at the Olympics after the highs of last week.

You just can't rely on the showjumpers. Or really on any of the "on the day" type events - 7s Rugby, golf etc. they hardly ever work out for us.

Obviously a huge shame for Mageean. It was clear in recent weeks that she was off so not a huge surprise that she's dropped out. She's been cursed with injuries throughout her career but hopefully she will get back and get a good run at the Worlds next year.

Great run from Cathal Doyle, PB in the Olympics despite it being his third race in three days. Really impressive.

That was my initial thought, but then he differentiated between himself and Paul in a way that made me think he meant more than that. Maybe Paul is just doing some more lightweight races or something like that. We'll see how it goes.

I think it's going to be a huge ask to be honest. O'Donovan is obviously an exceptional rower so he maybe might have a chance at a push but I'm not sure McCarthy does. Hope I'm wrong. I wonder if there's scope for him to give the coastal stuff a go, but I don't know enough about that new event to know whether it could be possible or not. I saw him in one interview talking about the final being his last ever weigh-in, but saying that it might be different for Paul. The way he said it seemed to suggest that he thought he was maybe done.

Have to say when I posted the above after McSharry's race on Monday night, I was fairly sure at least one of those would blow up on us. To win a medal every day this week is absolutely unbelievable, and would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. A lot of credit to a lot of people for making something like this possible - our most successful Olympics with seven medals, even if next week does turn out to be a bust. Having said that, I'm happy enough that that was a 1500m race and not a 1600m race because Wiffen looked fairly blown towards the end there, don't think he'd have held off the Hungarian if it went on any longer. Doesn't bode too favourably for the open water, hopefully he still gives it a go but I'd say expectations need to be managed on that one. Incidentally Wiffen's swim was our 25th top 10 finish of the games and our next top 8 finish will be our 20th. Incredible consistency across a wide range of sports and another real sign of significant progress.

Interesting to start to hear about the next steps for our medal winners after Paris. Paul O'Donovan obviously having to change boat but McClenaghan talking about expanding into more gymnastics disciplines. McSharry sadly sounding like she's going to pack it in. Possibly Fintan McCarthy also? Wiffen's just getting started I'd imagine.

Tuthill looks a prospect. Youngest competitor in the Hammer, threw within about a foot of her PB on her final throw. Finished 16th with 12 going through, would have needed a huge PB to make it so she can be proud of that effort off the back of making the final at the Europeans.

There was hardly a downer all day. McIlroy put himself in the mix, Lowry was good too, both swimming relays overachieved, Wiffen looked both incredibly strong while not going full pace, the cyclists had the best go at the road race that I've ever seen from us, Doyle ran superbly in his repechage, the three canoeists all got into the next round, Harrington upgraded her medal to minimum 🥈 and Rhys won the 🥇.

What a day. What an absolutely fantastic day.

Well throw in two European athletics gold medals and winning the Six Nations and 2024 must surely be the most successful year in the history of Irish sport.