Start every morning with The 42′s definitive guide to all the day’s action: when you need to be in front of the TV, who are Ireland’s medal hopefuls, and what other big stories should you look out for.
Welcome to Day 2 of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. You ready?
Good. Plonk yourself in front of the telly and let’s get this show on the road.
Six sports — a lot of them team-oriented today — and the return of a couple of Olympic champions from down Skibbereen way. It should be a good one, and you’ll be able to catch most of it on RTÉ2.
Which Irish athletes are competing – and when can I watch them?
Equestrian: Sarah Ennis (Action Lady M), Susie Berry (Wellfields Lincoln) and Austin O’Connor (Colorado Blue) get the Irish action underway in Eventing’s cross country leg, which will start at 9:30 and run for six hours.
Rowing: Five Irish boats will take to the water between around 9:40am and midday. Aifric Keogh and Fiona Murtagh get the televised Irish action underway in Heat 2 of the Women’s Pair, live on RTÉ 2.
Next up will be Ross Corrigan and Nathan Timoney in Heat 1 of the Men’s Pair, which is scheduled for 10am. The Women’s Lightweight Double Sculls will see the return of Margaret Cremen and Aoife Casey to Olympic waters — they’re in Heat 1 at 10:30am.
Then come the reigning Olympic champs, Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy, in Heat 3 of the Men’s Lightweight Double Sculls at 11:20.
Ireland’s final boat of the day will see Emily Hegarty, Natalie Long, Eimear Lambe and Imogen Magner compete in Heat 2 of the Women’s Four, an event from which Ireland took bronze in Tokyo.
Swimming: Mona McSharry will compete in Heat 5 of the Women’s 100m Breaststroke. The heats are scheduled to take place between 10:27am and 10:43, and McSharry is due to be shown on RTÉ2.
Should she reach a semi-final, that will be broadcast on RTÉ at 8:10pm.
Boxing: Three Irish boxers kick off their campaigns today, beginning with Tokyo bronze medallist Aidan Walsh who faces home boxer Makan Traore of France in a Round of 32 bout at 71kg. That one will be live on RTÉ2 with first bell scheduled for 10:32am.
Gráinne Walsh (women’s 66kg) and Jack Marley (men’s 92kg) will also throw their first punches in anger later today: Walsh faces Hungary’s Anna Luca Hamori at 4:22pm and Marley will square off with hard-hitting Pole Mateusz Bereznicki at 7:32pm.
Women’s Sevens rugby: Ireland kick off their campaign with the tournament curtain-raiser against Team GB, live on RTÉ 2 from 2:30pm. They’ll face South Africa in their second and final pool fixture of the day at 6pm.
Sailing: Tokyo 49ers Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove will compete in the Skiff from 12:15pm.
Team Ireland medal watch
The medal options for Ireland are scarce today; it’s more about champions and past medallists greasing their wheels as they begin their respective campaigns. Victory for boxer Jack Marley in his 92kg last-16 bout against Poland’s Mateusz Bereznicki, however, would bring him to within one fight of a medal.
Do not miss…
The Olympic final return of Adam Peaty: between 2014 and 2021, British swimmer Peaty won every available major gold medal in the 100m breaststroke – including at two Olympics, two Commonwealth Games and three world championships. Throughout that period, he also broke the world record five times. After the Tokyo Games in 2021, however, Peaty stepped away from the sport citing mental-health issues.
He returned to the pool last October with today’s 100m breaststroke final in mind (8:44pm). Standing in his way is China’s Qin Haiyang, who in the 2023 world championships completed a treble gold of 50m, 100m and 200m.
There are other threats, too: American Nic Fink is the reigning 100m breaststroke world champion, while Italy’s 2022 world champ Nicolo Martinenghi also features in this showpiece. So too does Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Arno Kamminga of the Netherlands.
Back-to-back Olympic champ Peaty will have his work cut out to complete the three-peat in Paris.
Honourable mention: at 4:15pm, the USA men’s basketball team — led by LeBron James and steered by stars such as Olympic debutant Steph Curry and fellow NBA great Kevin Durant — will take on a Serbian outfit containing, among others, Denver Nuggets standout Nikola Jokic.
The Americans have won 16 of the available 20 basketball Olympic golds but this star-studded side has looked ropey entering these Games: it took heroics from LeBron to spare them from the humiliation of a defeat to South Sudan last Sunday. Serbia could put the Americans’ preparation under harsher scrutiny today.
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Listen to our new podcast, Olympics Daily with Cooney and O’Carroll…
Episode 3: The fashion, the flagbearers and Gianni Infantino
