Ireland at the Olympics

We love a good tryer here in Ireland. The bar for Olympic performance isn't the highest here and we have a tendency to consider it a good day if someone doesn't disgrace themselves or fall flat on their faces. Bearing that in mind, the performances so far from the Irish team at the Olympics have been OK. No medals yet, and let's be honest, it might well stay that way. But on the whole, we have had respectable performances.

We did have the embarassing incident where Irish swimmer Melanie Nocher had to stop dead in the water in her 200m freestyle heat in order to adjust her goggles. Later, the incident was blamed on the fact that the swimmer could not wear the hat supplied to her and to had to wear a different cap. The question needs to be asked why she didn't perform some trial runs with her new gear and make sure that all would be OK. It shows a lack of professionalism. Debacle aside, she did actually swim well, so here's hoping that a valuable lesson has been learned.

The finals of the men's K1 kayak have just finished with heart-breaking news for Ireland. Eoin Rheinisch had struggled to qualify for the semi-finals and then the final, but put in a fantastic paddle in the final. He was in gold position for quite a while, falling to silver and then bronze. However, he lost the bronze on the last paddle of the day. Although we may say that a 4th place finish in an Olympic final is undoubtedly a good showing, it's probably going to feel quite bitter to Eoin right now.


Well done Eoin, you did us proud. You held on in there, despite being 15th in the qualifiers and 10th in the semis. You kept your head, displayed your professionalism and came home 4th in the final. Congratulations!

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