Cosmo Kramer

Really not wanting to go too far down a rabbit hole here because this is not at all what this thread is about, but we are definitely not "underfunded compared to most countries". That is manifestly untrue.

In a historical context you're correct as I mentioned, but in terms of current day funding and - in many sports - access to facilities domestically, it's important not to compare today to the 1970s, 80s or even 90s to 2000s. We have high quality programmes in multiple sports designed and funded to deliver success, the goalposts have been moved as a result.

Great effort from the two relay teams overnight - Adeleke and Mawdsley in particular. I watched it on delay this morning and even though it wasn't live, seeing the two Ireland teams streak home in first place was really quite something to watch, just not something we're used to seeing in relay athletics. I think that takes us over the 100 mark in terms of Olympic qualifiers now. The men's sevens had a really strong second place in Singapore today also and continue to look like realistic contenders, albeit you have to account for the somewhat "on the day" nature of sevens rugby. They arguably should have won today to be honest. I would share some of the concerns though about the form of some of our teams since the new year. To get a record medal haul we really need our rowing and boxing teams to be firing and they don't seem to be right now. Personally I would see anything below five medals as an underachievement at this point. In historical terms it wouldn't necessarily be of course, but our teams are so much better funded and prepared than they used to be that we do need to see that paying off in terms of medals at this point. London was great, Rio was disappointing, Tokyo was somewhere in-between with a lower than anticipated medal total offset by the two gold medals. With boxing and lightweight rowing still on the programme, two gold medalists defending their titles as well as something close to home advantage in Paris, 2024 always seemed like the potential sweet spot for me, the one where we could potentially surpass London and really make some memorable history. Whereas right now it's starting to look like if we scraped five medals that would have to be deemed a big success. At this point in time I'd absolutely bite your hand off for the seven medals Gracenote have us down for.

Is it 16 players in an Olympic hockey squad? That would take us to 85 qualifiers in total so far. Great numbers this far out from the games.

Great bronze medal for Corrigan and Timoney there, inches from silver too. Serious potential in that boat.

Wiffen seemed well off the pace in his final today, only barely scraped home in fourth in what was expected to be a four man race. Wonder if he'd be better just focusing on the 1500m for Paris, rather than going for both events, the other three seem to have his number at this point.

Outstanding stuff from Mageean in the mile tonight, didn't really see her run because all the focus was understandably on the world record, but great to see her in form again going into a major championships, shows that last year wasn't a one off. Fifth fastest women's mile in history is some achievement.

Not too much change overall recently, I guess we're out of season for a number of Olympic sports. Dan Wiffen continues to post impressive times though, and his twin brother is doing well too. Will be interesting to see how far Dan can go by 2024. Men's Rugby 7s are doing well despite the absence of Kennedy - hope to see him back next year.

I'd like to see us win five medals - I kind of feel like that should be a base line for us moving forward - a medal per million of the population! Obviously it's easy to say that but whether we can actually achieve it or not is another thing. I was slightly disappointed that we only ended up with the four in Tokyo, but then two of them being gold balanced out the slight underperformance in terms of overall medals relative to expectations going into the games. In terms of individual competitors I think Adeleke has the potential to be the star of the games for us. Not that she'll necessarily win a medal - though she might if she keeps improving at the rate she's going - but we have seen this week how big a deal having one or two genuinely top class track athletes is, especially in the sprints. I can't remember any recent European athletics championships getting the Irish media coverage the current one is - not since the days of Sonia - and that's without us winning a single medal so far. As much as we enjoy following all the other sports athletics will always be the biggest event in any Olympic games. It's the sport that has the most cut through in terms of potentially creating an "Italia 90 moment" (for the want of a better phrase) in a way that a sport like rowing or gymnastics never will among the wider population who only tune in for the biggest events. So having someone like Adeleke going in as a likely finalist and possible medalist would be great. Obviously Olatunde also, but a semi final would probably be a more realistic aim for him. How amazing would it be to see an Irishman in the men's 100m Olympic final some day though...maybe 2028 for that! What I like the most about both of them is that they seem to be able to peak on the big day - that's a great advantage at a major finals when others often underperform. Also Kate O'Connor - I don't know that she'll ever be an Olympic medal contender - but great to have an international quality heptathlete all the same. I don't generally bother with the Commonwealth games given the lack of Irish interest, but I made a point of watching it this year the days she was competing for NI and it was very enjoyable. Outside of athletics we'll obviously lean heavily on boxing and rowing again for medal hopes. Is there a possibility of both Harrington and Broadhurst competing at different weights or is that gone now - I had thought that was potentially an option at one point? In rowing the men's lightweights will probably be our biggest medal "banker" of the games. In swimming I'd agree with what has already been said about Wiffen - he seems to have made consistent and significant improvements over the last couple of years that suggest he's our best hope in the pool. McSharry has maybe just stalled a bit, if she could find something extra she might yet contend though. The other thing I'd really like to see is Rhys McClenaghan put to bed what happened in Tokyo by winning a medal. I'll be watching that event from behind the sofa though, the pommel is torture to watch when you're invested in it! Finally, in terms of team size, realistically it's going to be down on Tokyo purely because we had such an impressive size of team there, padded out by the hockey team who may not make it this time. But I'd still hope it might be one of our biggest ever teams other than Tokyo to hopefully highlight the significant and sustained improvements we're making in Olympic sports since the medal free days of the Athens games and before.