Irish athlete Sarah Lavin and golfer Shane Lowry have been named as Ireland’s flag-bearers for the Olympics opening ceremony.
The ceremony will begin at 6.30pm Irish time on Friday and is due to last for more than three hours.
For the first time, the opening ceremony will not take place in a stadium but in the heart of a city, with the world’s Olympics teams set to parade along the River Seine in boats, watched by about 300,000 spectators from the banks and quays.
“It’s surreal to be honest with you. It is the greatest honour I have ever been given and I would even go so far as to say, probably any Olympic athlete ever could be given, to carry the country’s flag,” Lavin said.
TV guide: the best new shows to watch this week, beginning tonight
Ciara Mageean: ‘I just felt numb. It wasn’t even sadness, it was just emptiness’
Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year: Celebrity ‘manifesting’ influences 2024 choice
Sonia O’Sullivan: A jog down Olympic memory lane shows how far Irish athletes have come
“I’m so grateful to those who’ve trusted me and put me in this position, I’m deeply touched and just excited to get out there.”
Shane Lowry said: “It’s a huge honour for me and my family. You know, anybody that knows me knows how patriotic I am and how much I love Ireland and how much I love my country.
“So it is something like I’m not sure you’d even dream about as a kid because it’s so far out there that it does not seem achievable. But to get to do something like that is a huge honour for me.”
It is the second Olympics for both Lavin and Lowry, having both competed in the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
