Athletics
Rhasidat Adeleke eased into the women’s Olympic 400m semi-finals on Monday morning, the 21-year-old producing a mature performance to take a comfortable victory in the final heat, clocking 50.09 seconds. Adeleke had the luxury of being able to ease down towards the line, beginning to look around her shoulder with around 60m to go. The semi-finals are on Wednesday evening.
Sharlene Mawdsley and Sophie Becker missed out on automatic qualification to the semi-finals but have another bite of the cherry in Tuesday morning’s repechage.
Equestrian
Shane Sweetnam and Daniel Coyle will be right in the mix for medals on Tuesday morning after finishing in the top three of the individual jumping qualifying in Versailles. Ireland’s 2012 Olympic bronze medallist Cian O’Connor did not make it, just edged out of the 30 combinations (from 66 starters) who will battle it out in the final.
Cork rider Sweetnam and his grey James Kann Cruz were first of the Irish into action and had a clear round in the second fastest time of the day (73.35 seconds). Derry’s Daniel Coyle and his mare Legacy also went clear in a time of 73.64, which ranked them third-best overall.
O’Connor and his gelding Maurice came very late in the order after an issue with a shoe. The duo clipped a plank at the sixth fence, finishing on four faults and a time of 75:17 seconds. That left O’Connor in 30th place but there were still seven riders to follow and he had an anxious wait until being edged out, finishing 33rd overall.
The final will be run off in reverse order.
Sailing
Carlow’s Finn Lynch has qualified for Tuesday afternoon’s men’s dinghy final after low winds in Marseille forced the cancellation of races nine and 10 on Monday afternoon.
Lynch will enter the medal race in 10th position, but is too far back to challenge for medals, but he can still finish his Games in style with a race win.
Eve McMahon narrowly missed out on progression to the women’s dinghy medal race after the 10th and final race was cancelled. The Olympic debutant was sitting in 13th place having moved up to that position on Monday with an impressive seventh place in race nine.
Diving
Ciara McGing made her Olympic debut at the Centre Aquatique on Tuesday morning. The 23-year-old, who had unfortunately been suffering from illness for the last couple of days, was relieved to be able to complete her five dives. Finishing 29th on 188.50 points, McGing’s best score came from her third dive, a reverse 2 ½ somersaults for 50.40 points.
