Olympics: Irish fencer Siobhan Byrne will face Poland's Irena Weickowska in the first round of the Beijing Olympics.
The 35th seed has met the Pole once before and won on that occasion, though Weickowska is ranked 30th in the competition.
If she wins the match she faces a far tougher opponent in third seed Elena Netchaeva of Russia after the seven highest ranked competitors received a bye into the second round.
Byrne, who missed out on competing in Athens 2004 by just one place, will open her campaign at 3am (Irish time) on Saturday morning.
Letterkenny's Philip Deignan is another who is in action on Saturday but the cyclist will not have the indoors to shield him from the elements.
He and Nicholas Roche will embark on 254.4km journey past some of China's most famous landmarks but sightseeing is not an option. The weather is expected to be in the mid-seventies and thundery showers are forecast. Deignan reckons he can take the heat could do without the rain.
"To be honest the heat doesn't bother me as much as it does some of the riders, it's something you get used to although it would be nice if it was a little cooler but I wouldn't like it to rain because that would make stretches of the course more dangerous," he said today.
The first 80km are flat enough but seven loops up and down the 23.8km Badaling Pass near the Great Wall will bring the burn, though the distance from town should take the edge off the much anticipated pollution effect.
"The loop around the Wall is far enough out of town and it's at altitude so it's cooler, fresher and much healthier for the cyclists," Deignan told the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) website. "As for the climb, it's really tough, it's twelve kilometres long and it's a not a regular gradient, it's steep then it levels out and then it goes up again so it's hard to get a good rhythm on.
"We have to do it seven times, it takes about twenty-five minutes each time and once you've done over two hundred kilometres it's going to hurt."
It is at this stage, in the shadow of the Great Wall, that Deignan will need Roche most and vice versa. The riders have just eachother to rely on, unlike the more established nations, but the Donegal man prefers to take the positives from that.
"With only the two of us there isn't a lot you can do as far as tactics are concerned especially against the big countries such as Spain, France and Germany, who will all have five riders, but in a way that makes us underdogs and neither of us will be watched as closely as the big nations.
"So in the race we'll just have to sit back and watch what happens and while they're watching each other, hopefully we can take advantage," he added.
His medal hopes? "You can't really do anymore than your best, I know I have prepared the best I can over the last few months and I'm in the best shape possible.
"The race itself can be so unpredictable and a lot of guys won't even finish and you have to factor in crashes and mechanical problems so if I can avoid any mishaps and race as hard as I can we'll see where I end up."