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Everything posted by Cosmo Kramer
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He was excellent, as were Doyle and Lynch and Nhat as well this evening. In terms of our genuine medal hopefuls today went as well as could have been hoped for, both McClenaghan and the men's doubles in rowing look in good shape. Clancy losing so narrowly was probably the low point of the day, but he was unlikely to progress past the round of 16 even if he had snuck through this one.
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A busy hour or so for some of the less fancied Irish competitors. Mullen is going to produce a very decent finish in the time trial, won't medal but will exceed expectations. Liam Jegou has sneaked through to the semis in his event. Only three eliminated at this point, Jegou looked sloppy in both runs and was lucky to survive. Madison Corcoran unfortunately DFL after her first run. And Dean Clancy, who I rated as probably our tenth best hope out of our 10 boxers after the draw has gone out in R32 v Jordan. Mixed results but it's enjoyable viewing all the same.
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That's the thing, and I've been thinking about that as I've heard and seen a lot of people predicting 9 to 11 medals for us in these games. Not every medal we're fancied to win will come in, and we almost never seem to pick up any of the surprise ones that seem to inevitably find their way to the larger nations. The only possible difference this time is that we're throwing more darts at the board than we've ever thrown before, so hopefully there will be an unexpected bullseye at some point in the next couple of weeks. The sevens wasn't it unfortunately. The best thing about the Olympics though as a supporter (not for the unsuccessful competitors of course) is that you get over the disappointments a lot quicker as there's always another event coming up to take away your attention. We're competing in nine other sports on Saturday, so plenty to look forward to.
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An awful lot happened there, including a very questionable Fiji try. But we had them on the ropes at one point in the second half, 8 points ahead, and Kennedy went for a low percentage grubber kick through going for the kill. Can't help but feel that the secret to winning from that point was to keep possession and slow the game down, it's what Ireland 7s do best. By the time we got our hand on the ball again we were four points down and chasing against the clock. Considering they were missing Conroy and Keenan was a complete bust, it was a decent effort, but it was there to be won and they let it slip. They might as well go and do the opening ceremony now, it doesn't really matter whether they finish fifth or eighth.
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I'll leave it to others that are more knowledgeable to dissect the boxing draws, but notable from the snippets I've seen on Twitter that M Walsh, Lehane and Moorhouse in addition to the seeded O'Rourke and Harrington are all now two bouts away from a medal after the draw - none of those five will face R32 bouts.
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I wasn't expecting the sevens team to medal, the draw was a joke so we were always up against it. But the strength of that team is that they try to play smart to counter what they lack compared to other teams, so to lose because of a huge tactical error is a tough one. The draw was so tough that even managing to beat South Africa a second time was likely to throw up a semi final against the hosts. So it was going to be a battle every step of the way regardless. The only saving grace of this result is that if they do somehow manage to beat Fiji they would then at least avoid NZ and France in the semis. But the more likely outcome is that it won't matter now. Next up is the boxing draw this evening, that will be held before the rugby quarter final. We're in 10 of the 13 draws in the boxing, so surely they can't all turn out unfavourably for us...
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It's looking more likely to be South Africa again if we beat NZ. Obviously a better outcome than Fiji, but not much of a reward for topping a difficult group. Definitely looks like Group B got the much easier path, it's the easiest group of the three to begin with and then the winner will probably get a quarter final against USA, while the second placed team gets to play another group runner up, whereas the second placed team in our group has to play a group winner. We haven't had much luck with rugby draws in general in recent years and it's the case yet again here.
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Big win over Japan, first Top 8 finish of the games in the bag already. I know the reasons why it's happened this time, but having two of the three men's sevens days taking place before the opening ceremony feels a bit harsh on the players, with 8 of the 12 sides going to be out of medal contention by tomorrow night. Hopefully in future there is no more than one day of sevens before the official start of the games. I don't mind having early rounds of events taking place at this stage, but effectively knocking out almost 100 of the games competitors before the games themselves officially start doesn't sit right with me.
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RE: The golf predictions - I think they're just going off the rankings and they're trying to predict every sport so need to include golf. But everyone knows it's a bit of a lottery really - Slovakia won one in men's golf last time. Oldira's picks look close enough and would represent a historic games for us. I was tempted to wait until after the boxing draw to list my final picks, but seemingly it's on after two days of Sevens Rugby which is too late so I might as well put them up now, but will possibly want to tweak them again after the boxing draw. 1 Gold Men's Lightweight Doubles 2 Silver 1 in boxing (maybe Harrington) 1 for Wiffen (maybe 1500m) 3 Bronze 1 in boxing (maybe O'Rourke) 1 for Wiffen (maybe 800m) 1 in rowing (maybe Doyle/Lynch) And a whole load of 4th to 8th place finishes... 3 in boxing 3 in rowing 2 in athletics 2 in equestrian 1 in golf 1 in rugby 1 in cycling 1 in gymnastics So 20 top 8 finishes in total including 6 medals.
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Almost there, 48 hours from now the men's rugby team will already have played their first match. Have to say I'm getting a little uncomfortable with how casually us winning 7 or 8 medals is getting bandied about in the Irish media. It's far from a foregone conclusion that we'll win that amount and if you asked me now I'd say we're more likely to win three than eight, though the total will more likely be somewhere in-between. There's so many unknowns and that's what makes it exciting. But last Saturday showed us the scale of the task ahead for Adeleke and it will be similar in every other event too. Any medals we get will have been hard won.
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Just saw a tweet there from Sinead Kissane showing county crests for all the athletes going to the games. Looks like a great geographical spread among the competitors. The only counties I couldn't see were Roscommon - but Aoife O'Rourke is from Castlerea - and Leitrim - but Dean Clancy boxes for a club in Manorhamilton. Which would mean that all 32 counties are effectively represented in the team if that's the case?
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Great work Ogreman, 133 was spot on more than two months out, and the individual sport predictions weren't far off either. The out of the blue one was the fourth canoe slalom qualifier, but it brought the total number nicely into line with the prediction. Looking forward to your next spreadsheet telling us how many medals we're going to win!
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Cyclists confirmed - Healy, Mullen and Armitage. We have our full team in place now! Incidentally no photoshoot for the cyclists, I think the only sport that didn't have one. Wonder if there was an issue there and that contributed to the late announcement? Or if a late selection decision meant that no photoshoot was possible?
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