Prospects:
Boxing Kellie Harrington is our leading hope in the women's lightweight. Current world champion and finalist at European Games before withdrawing due to injury. Michaela Walsh will be another hopeful and we should have a couple of chances on the men's side too. But we saw what happened in Rio 2016 and we all know how corrupt boxing is so I won't be relying on medals here.
Worst case: 0 medals
Prediction: 1 medal
Best case: 3+ medals (one of which could be gold)
Rowing: Sanita Puspure in the women's single sculls is currently at the top of her event. She is the world and European champion and if she can stay on current form in the next year, she could be looking at a medal or maybe even gold.
The O'Donovan brothers in the men's lightweight double sculls are also the world champions. Their 2019 season is only getting underway as Paul was absent due to medical studies and Gary has been suffering from an injury. However, there is another set of brothers, twins in fact - the McCarthys, and one of those could very well take the seat off Gary in the coming season. As it stands, Ireland has 2 world class crews in this event, both sets of brothers, but who knows who will fill the seats.
The newly formed German crew look to be a force to be reckoned with and the margins in this event are so tight between the leading nations that it's impossible to rely on a medal. So it could be gold, and it could be no medal at all.
Worst case: 0 medals
Prediction: 1 medal
Best case: 2 medals (could be 2 golds)
Gymnastics: Rhys McClenaghan put Irish gymnastics on the map in 2018 when he twice beat the Olympic champion, Max Whitlock, to win gold at the Commonwealth Games and the European Championships. He was hampered by injury at the worlds which later required surgery and he is well and truly on the road to recovery. He is very ambitious and is piling on the difficulty in his routines in training. He has what it takes to be the best, but honestly, any medal would be a glorious result and a first ever for Ireland in Olympic gynmastics.
Worst case: 0 medals
Prediction: 0 medals
Best case: 1 medal (could be gold)
Those sports hold our big chances. However we have decent chances in the following sports:
Equestrian: In eventing we won a silver in both the team and individual events at the World Equestrian Games last year. This would be very difficult to replicate and indeed one medal would be an awesome achievement. The possibility is there which is nice. In showjumping if the team qualifies which I actually don't believe they will, then there will be a possibility of a medal, though unlikely. Same for the individual.
Worst case: 0 medals
Prediction: 0 medals
Best case: 2 medals (extremely optimistic and highly unlikely)
Modern Pentathlon: Both Arthur Lanigan-O'Keeffe and Natalya Coyle in the men's and women's events have some chance of making the podium. On their best days they can mix it with the best but a medal for either is still a very tall order.
Worst case: 0 medals
Prediction: 0 medals
Best case: 1 medal
Golf: Rory McIlroy in the men's event will be our big hope. It's golf, so no point whatsoever in trying to predict anything. Who knows who will win the medals to be honest, but very happy we have someone like Rory to go into the battle.
Worst case: 0 medals
Prediction: 0 medals
Best case: 1 medal (best case of course would be a gold medal but any medal would be considered among the best results)
The following list are those whose chances are remote so I won't bother going into best or worst case scenarios but there is a tiny, tiny possibility they could surpise us
Thomas Barr (Men's 400m hurdles - 4th at Rio 2016, but this event is as tough as it has ever been and he would need to be at his best-ever form and maybe need for some of the other star names to be off-form or absent... which of course is possible.
Cycling - Men's Road Race. We always have a small chance in this event and Tokyo 2020 should be no different. No idea of the course but we have a decent sprinter in Sam Bennett and a decent climber in Dan Martin and then we have the up-and-coming Eddie Dunbar. A medal as always is unlikely but we always have a hope. We also have a small chance in the men's madison if they qualify but that medal chance is pretty small to be honest
Shane Ryan in swimming has been improving in the last couple of years, particularly on the mental side of his game, and it's not beyond all hope he could make it to a 50m free or 100m backstroke final and then who knows. I wouldn't bet on it though.
Ben Fletcher - judo. Not really sure of his chances to be honest. I don't follow the sport much but I know he is decent at least. But would put him on the marginal side along with the rest of this grouping.
So, reading back over my predictions, I would predict 3 medals: 0-2 from boxing and 0-2 from rowing and 0-2 from elsewhere. So that means 0-6 and I will go down the middle and predict 3 medals .