Rory McIlroy rallied strongly during the second round of the Men’s Individual Golf Singles to stay within touch of the leading pack heading into the weekend’s action at Le Golf National. McIlroy produced a brilliant birdie on his final hole on Friday evening to sign for a two-under-par 69, to lie six shots behind halfway leaders Xander Schauffele, Hideki Matsuyama, and Tommy Fleetwood.
The 35-year-old is five-under-par overall after the opening rounds of Paris 2024, his birdie three on 18 ensuring a positive finish to the day.Looking ahead to the weekend, McIlroy said:
“The birdies are out there, I know that, so if I can tidy up a couple of things I can try get myself back up that leader board and in contention for a medal.”
Meanwhile, Shane Lowry was once again left frustrated with a level-par round, leaving him with work to do on Saturday if he is to harbour realistic hopes of forcing his way into contention.A bogey on the third was offset by birdies on four and seven, but the Offaly golfer dropped another shot on 17 to card a second successive 71.
”Today was pretty similar to yesterday, never really got anything going. It’s disappointing, I’m trying my hardest out there and gave myself a lot of chances but my putter was cold. I’ve probably given myself too much to do and will be playing for pride this weekend.”
The crowds were incredible, to see the Irish support, there is a lot of tricolours out there, a lot more than I expected and the support we’ve got the last couple of days has been great but I’m disappointed I couldn’t put up a better performance for them today.”
In sailing Irish Men’s Skiff with Robert Dickson and Seán Waddilove suffered heartbreak in the Medal Race in Marseilles. Lying second overall heading into the final test the brilliant Irish duo needed a fourth place finish in the race to claim a medal.
However, their medal ambitions came undone right at the start, when, with a handful of other boats, they marginally crossed the start line ahead of the official start and were forced to turn around, and re-start, leaving them with a mountain to climb to catch the leaders over the short medal race course. Dickson and Waddilove pushed hard to catch up but finished the medal race in ninth overall with left them an agonising fourth overall in the final standings.
Of the three other boats that were just over the line with Ireland before the start Poland and Uruguay also turned back to restart but the Croatians decided not to and were disqualified as a result.
Seán Waddilove spoke about this after they came off the water:
“We had a tough time on the start line, the boat below us was over the line so we had to make a decision, do we go back and clear ourselves if we were over as well, and we took that decision. After that, there wasn’t really much chance to get back into it.
“I’m pretty disappointed, but I think if we give a few days to process everything I think we’ll look back on it and be really proud of ourselves. Probably the last downwind before we took the left turn to the finish, the gaps had just gotten too big and it was a fairly straightforward course. There wasn’t very many passing lines, so yeah, probably that moment it was the game over.”
The gold medal was won by Spain who had led the fleet series throughout, and won the medal race itself. New Zealand took the silver thanks to a third place finish in the medal race. A fourth place finish in the medal race ensured bronze for USA, just two points ahead of Ireland in the final standings.
Rob Dickson gave his assessment:
“I’m pretty disappointed, we just had a bad race, but you know, we’re pretty proud of how we sailed throughout the whole week. Fourth, it’s still a really good result. It’s just a shame that it a panned out the way did.We’re really proud of the process, we stuck to it. We were both there mentally, and it’s just a very small mistake, very small margin, and like you know, we didn’t really do anything massively wrong. It was just it was no way to get back into that race. That’s just one race at the end. The rest the entire week was going so well, we’re happy and proud with how we sailed throughout the week.
Ireland finished seventh in the team show jumping event, finishing on a total of 14 faults on an ultimately disappointing afternoon in Versailles. The team of Shane Sweetnam, Daniel Coyle, and Cian O’Connor were well placed going in to the final round, after an initial five faults from Sweetnam, and a fantastic clear from Coyle, another clear was needed from O’Connor and Maurice to be in with a chance of the medals.
However It wasn’t to be for the combination, and the team, as two poles down and a single time penalty left the Irish in seventh; equalling their best ever team result at an Olympic Games. Sweetnam, Ireland’s first line rider on board James Kann Cruz, had been foot perfect and looked to have safely navigated his way round to a clear, before the top bar at the last dropped and he finished in a time of 79.81 to add a single time penalty for an overall score of five faults.
Sweetnam said. “I think it was cheap; I’m not sure, it fell a little bit late. I took a stride less than most had been doing and normally that’s good for us but it proved costly but he jumped great.”
Coyle and Legacy followed; they’d jumped clear for Ireland in qualifying yesterday, and the pair produced another scintillating effort, coming home error free and within the time to move Ireland to just a pole off then leaders Great Britain, in fourth place at that point.”Unbelievable – absolutely incredible,” said the Derry man after his sensational round.
“To jump double clear at the Olympics is just a dream come true. She was a little more tired in there today – as was I – there hasn’t been much sleeping done over the last day or two and I’ll be glad of the couple of days break now before the individual on Monday.
Coyle’s round led to a reclassification and a new running order, with Ireland’s anchor Cian O’Connor jumping fourth last after the break. At that point, the medal positions were occupied by Great Britain on one, hosts France on three, and the United States on four.
Four time Olympian O’Connor on Maurice didn’t have the round he’d hoped for, knocking a pole at the combination and then again at the second double to finish on nine faults, and ultimately see the team drop to seventh in the overall standings.
“It’s a tough day,” said O’Connor. “We’re at the pinnacle of our sport and it shows the fine lines at this level. We had good plans, but it’s a big arena with very unique fences – my lad has been jumping great all year and today just wasn’t his day but there’s a lot of people who put so much work in. From Horse Sport Ireland to our own teams at home and the support staff here in Versailles. We’ll dust ourselves down now, we’ve a few days off now and make sure our horses are ok. That’s the main thing – we’ll come again.
Irish canoeists Noel Hendrick and Liam Jegou returned to the water today for the Kayak Cross time trials. Kayak Cross is a relatively new event, and this is the first time that it has taken place at the Olympic Games. The heats are run with four boats going down the course together, starting from a two meter drop. It also includes a full underwater spin halfway through the course.
Today each of the 38 athletes raced solo down the course in a time trial format to create a ranking to seed them for round one tomorrow. Both Hendrick and Jegou had solid runs, coming down the course with tight lines and staying clean, avoiding any penalties. Jegou was the first Irish man down and set a time of 70.81, shortly followed up with a time of 69.31 by Hendrick. The Kildare paddler finished up in 14th position with Jegou just behind in 18th; both in the top half of the group.
Tomorrow Hendrick is in Race 3 against the French gold medallist in the Kayak Single, and Senegal. Jegou goes in race 7 against Germany, Austria and Croatia. The top two in each of the races progresses to the elimination round and the rest go into the repechage for another chance.
21-year-old Madison Corcoran completed her run in the time trials also without any faults. Struggling with one of the upstream gates, Corcoran lost a bit of time paddling back around to clear it. Her barrel roll didn’t initially flag as fully completed and was kept under review, however, by the time she had finished her run she was in the green. She finished the time trial in 35th place. Corcoran will contest her round one race tomorrow against France, Slovenia, and Algeria.
RESULTS DAY 7 – Friday 2nd August
Rowing, Women’s Pair (W2-), Aifric Keogh and Fiona Murtagh, 2nd in B final in 7:08.88, 8th overall
Athletics, Men’s 1500m, Cathal Doyle, 9th in heat in 3:37.82, into repechage Aug 3rd
Athletics, Men’s 1500m, Luke McCann 8th in heat, into repechage Aug 3rd
Athletics, Men’s 1500m, Andrew Coscoran 15th in heat, into repechage Aug 3rd
Rowing, Men’s Pair (M2-), 6th in FINAL in 6:30.49, Ross Corrigan, Nathan Timoney
Swimming, Women’s 200m IM, heats, Ellen Walshe, 2:11.81, 6th in heat, into S/F tonight
Rowing, Men’s Lightweight Double Sculls (LW2x), GOLD IN FINAL in 6:10.99, Paul O’Donovan, Fintan McCarthy
Rowing, Women’s Lightweight Double Sculls (LW2x) 5th in FINAL in 6:54.57 Aoife Casey, Margaret Cremen
Sailing, Men’s Skiff, MEDAL RACE, 9th in race; 4th place overall
Golf, Men’s Individual, Round 2, Rory McIlroy, round of 69, on five-under for the tournament
Golf, Men’s Individual, Round 2, Shane Lowry, round of 71, level-par for the tournament
Sailing, Women’s Dinghy, , Eve McMahon 21st in Race 2
Sailing, Women’s Dinghy, Eve Mc Mahon, 16th in Race 3
Sailing, Women’s Dinghy, Eve Mc Mahon Race 4 abandoned, 15th overall in Fleet Series
Equestrian, Show Jumping, Shane Sweetnam, Cian O’Connor, Daniel Coyle, 7th in Team FINAL
Men’s Kayak Cross Time Trial, Noel Hendrick, 14th of 38 in 69.31, Round 1 August 3rd
Men’s Kayak Cross Time Trial, Liam Jegou, 18th of 38 in 07.81, Round 1 August 3rd
Women’s Kayak Cross Time Trial, Madison Corcoran, 35th of 37 in 83.49
Sailing, Men’s Dinghy, Finn Lynch, 26th in Race 3
Sailing, Men’s Dinghy, Finn Lynch, 22nd in Race 4, lying 25th overall in fleet series
Boxing, Women’s Featherweight (57kg), Last 16, Michaela Walsh Beaten by Svetlana Kamenova Staneva (BUL) 5-0
Hockey, Men’s Pool B, Ireland 2-1 New Zealand, Ireland finished 5th in Pool B