Determined Dawson shows true Aussie grit
As we know, athletes can go to extraordinary lengths to achieve their dream of competing at the Olympic Games, but it’s possibly safe to say that no one has ever matched the sacrifice Matt Dawson was willing to make to ensure he made it to Paris.
“I’m definitely closer to the end of my career than the start and, who knows, this could be my last Olympics,” he told the BBC. “If taking off the top of my finger was the price I had to pay, that’s what I would do.”
Yes, two weeks after badly breaking a finger on his right hand, the Australian hockey player decided to have the top of it amputated because it would have taken too long to recover from surgery. And now he’s in Paris preparing for his third Olympic Games.
“We heard that he went to the hospital and chopped his finger off, which was pretty interesting because I know people would give an arm and a leg and even a little bit of finger to be here sometimes,” said Australian captain Aran Zalewski.
Dawson might go home with a medal, but, also, not the top of his finger.
Six of the best for Ireland?
Sports Illustrated took on the mammoth task of predicting every medal winner in every event at these Olympics. So naturally enough, us being a bit parochial, we did an instant search for their Irish picks. The nerve of them – they only awarded us six medals, a measly two of the golden variety. The list:
Gold: Rhys McClenaghan (gymnastics) and Fintan McCarthy and Paul O’Donovan (lightweight double sculls).
Silver: Rory McIlroy (golf).
Bronze: Daniel Wiffen (800m freestyle and 1500m freestyle) and Daire Lynch and Philip Doyle (double sculls).
Lone stars fly the flag
While it must have been a tricky enough task deciding on who Ireland’s flag bearers should be at the opening ceremony, with no end of worthy candidates, it was a slightly simpler choice for the Olympic committees of Belize, Liechtenstein, Somalia and Nauru – largely because each country has only sent one athlete to the 2024 Games.
Runner Ali Idow Hassan will represent Somalia in the 800m, mountain biker Romano Puntener will fly the flag for Liechtenstein, while Nauru’s Winzar Kakiouea and Belize’s Shaun Gill will both run in the 100m.
Imagine how lonely it must be, though, in their countries’ sleeping quarters in the Olympic Village. Fair winds to them all.
Ireland an impressive third in key table
The number crunchers have been hard at work in advance of these Games, none more so than the people at CBS who spent time figuring out “which country has the most athletes per capita in the 2024 Olympics?”
So, among countries with populations exceeding one million, Slovenia ranked first with a highly impressive 42.9 Olympic athletes “per million population”. Next on the list was New Zealand, followed by . . . Ireland. Champagne time.
Based on our 2023 population of 5,233,461, the 133-strong Team Ireland contingent means that out of every million of us, 25.4 have qualified for the Paris Olympics. Granted, that puts the rest of us in the 999,974.6 grouping, but still, third in that table is not to be sniffed at.
In quotes
“Anybody who knows me knows how much I love my country. It’s something 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.” – A highly chuffed Shane Lowry after he and Sarah Lavin were chosen to be Ireland’s flag-bearers for the opening ceremony.
In numbers
987 – That’s how many medals are up for grabs over the next fortnight, with 10,500 athletes battling it out for them in 329 events.
