Updated 15:45
IRELAND’S CATHERINE O’NEILL has added yet another medal to an already impressive haul by claiming silver in today’s F51/52/53 discus.
O’Neill recorded a season’s best distance of 5.66 metres to take the podium place with a total of 880 points.
That distance was achieved on her very first throw, but each of her attempts was further than USA’s Zena Cole who claimed bronze.
Afterwards, O’Neill expressed the great relief at taking the podium:
“I have been waiting for this for a long time.” She said. “This is my third Paralympics and you cannot understand how much this means to me. I want to thank those who have supported me an stood by me.”
Team GB’s Josie Pearson will collect the gold with a total of 1122 points.
Cassie Mitchell, Estela Salas and Bochra Rzouga each broke double figures in distance terms, but their efforts were not enough to overhaul O’Neill’s marker and they finished out of the medals.
The triumph will be a massive fillip for O’Neill who finished an agonising fourth place in the club throw earlier this week. However, the New Ross athlete soon showed her competitive streak, as her thoughts began to turn to retaking her world record.
“I lost my world record today and don’t quite know how to think about that. I will enjoy the moment and look to chase that record back next year.”
Dunne is an animal
In fairness lads and lassies, when was the last time you watched Ireland play anyone and was confident in a win?… we have been a shambles of a team since 2002 and it looks increasingly likely another footballing tournament will pass us by and no lessons will be learned.
We’ve been alternating between hammerings, mind numbingly boring draws (even when we do the bare minimum to keep ourselves in the game and end up going to pennos), and once a decade or so, a memorable win to lift the heart, and we’ve been doing that since before Big Jack.
Ireland for me is at the stage now where I’d watch a premiership match ahead of an international fixture. That’s pretty sad, and I’m not proud to say it.
Who is on the Ireland bench today lads? Cheers for the feed by the way, watching attentively from my office desk in Canada…
subs are Westwood, Foley, Lawrence, Hunt, Cox, Delaney and James McCarthy, Luke.
Cheers for that Adrian, keep up the good work
Shay Given or Richard Dunne for president
Enjoyable intro on RTE evoking memories of the wonderful 1985 battle featuring Sly and Ivan Drago. Can Ireland slay the giant today ?????
I find it funny, do you really miss the Cold War?
Truly magnificent performance by Dunne. However even such a display shouldn’t cover up our numerous failings. 3 points out of 12 against Slovakia and Russia just isn’t good enough and Trap is, by far, the most negative tactician ever to manage Ireland.
Half time – phew, time to steal a few of the woman’s fake fingernails to replace my own
Down the left we look weak!!!
Bring on hunt
Tough away fixture for sure but Dunne being man of the match says it all. We never seem capable of threatening goals when really badly needed. Shame for Dunne, Duff & Given in particular missing another tournament. Bye Trap – great clean sheet record but you’ll never draw your way to a finals!
Why isnt Doyle actually running and why not bring on Hunt and Laurence
I know the home team are usually favored, but when the pitch is Astro-Turf, it may as well be a literal handicap for the visitors who aren’t used to playing on such a surface!
We are struggling
Just waiting for Russia to score, no confidence in this team sad to say :(
Pitch looks a terror to play on, Ireland don’t seem confident on it. Too much like astro turf
Doyle didnt look happy
3:1 if we talk about yellow cards, Ireland wins :)!
Early signs don’t look good for Ireland. Russia just seem far too fast and Ireland can’t keep up, our defence are all over the place and Russia not letting Ireland have time on the ball
15 mins gone. Ireland under savage pressure. it’s only a matter of time
Another shambles of a performance dressed up as a heroic effort.
oh u are blinded , we can now go on and win the group or at least a playoff if we win our nxt 2 games
Россия – вперёд!
Attacks of the Irish collapse early (image from the field): http://img.gazeta.ru/files3/21/3552021/MDF65730.JPG
We’re screwed, johnny giles only hope is if we get a ‘fluke’ :-(
The only fluke will be Russia not scoring.
How?
I’ll tell you how and it was little to do with “heroism” like Giles and Dunphy will tell you, it was the bad finishing by Russia and another dependable performance by Richard Dunne
Yes we have a chance of making the playoffs…theres six points to play for we are at most going to be 2 behind both slovaks and russia tonight meaning lots of permutations but the most obvious being we win our last 2 and russia beat slovaks …us guaranteed 2nd. But theres loads of other permutations including all of us finishing on the same points.My head hurts im going to ly down now
More pictures here: http://www.gazeta.ru/sport/nm/online/football/matches/31001.shtml
Just scroll down. It is also LIVE coverage (in russian).
Nice moment : http://img.gazeta.ru/files3/85/3552085/12270.jpg
Have we a hope of getting to play offs or how does it work
As usual it’s not 100% down to us, we need to win the last two matches and hope Slovakia only draw tonight and lose against Russia, we could automatically qualify as best placed runner up but do we actually deserve to go into a tournament?
3 minutes more
0:0!
If slovaks win tonite are we gone
we ok