Barnes honoured to carry flag at opening ceremony

He described it as just as good as winning an Olympic medal, which may be a slight exaggeration, although Paddy Barnes was clearly chuffed at being named the Irish flag bearer for the opening ceremony in Rio later this summer.

The Belfast boxer, who has already qualified for his third Olympics, having won bronze in both Beijing 2008 and London 2012, will thus lead the Irish team into the Maracanã Stadium during the opening ceremony, set for Friday, August 5th.

He is the second successive Irish boxer to be handed the honour too after Katie Taylor, who carried the Irish flag during the opening ceremony in London: that didn't do her chances any harm either as Taylor went on to win Olympic gold in what was the first boxing competition for women at the Olympics.

Barnes can make his own bit of Olympic history if he can win another medal in Rio, as that would make his the first Irish man or women to medal in three Olympics (Dr Pat O’Callaghan won back-to-back gold in the hammer in 1928 and 1932.) The 29 year-old Barnes is already one of the medal favourites to do exactly that, once again at light flyweight.

“Right now is does feel as good as winning an Olympic medal,” said Barnes, the announcement made at an event in Dublin to mark the 100-days-to-go before Rio. “But I am extremely proud also to be selector for such a great honour.”

Normally the announcement of the flag-bearer is made much closer the opening ceremony, or at least kept quiet. Pat Hickey, president of the Olympic Council of Ireland, explained the decision to make that announcement with 100 days to go

“We’re always being hounded by the media, people asking us nearly every day, when are we going to announce the flag bearer,” said Hickey. “So this time we said we’d do something different, for Rio, so people can take their minds off this. We only made the decision yesterday, and I’m delighted for Paddy Barnes, and have no doubt he’ll be a great role model to all the other athletes.”

So far 66 athletes have qualified for Rio, in 14 sports, between team and individuals, with the final number expected to be over 80, thus making it the largest team in Irish Olympic history.

Irish qualifiers to date

Athletics

Men’s 50k Race Walk (Rob Heffernan, Brendan Boyce)

Women’s Pole Vault (Tori Pena)

Women’s 1500 m (Ciara Mageean)

Men’s 20k Race Walk (Alex Wright)

Women’s 3k Steeplechase (Michelle Finn, Sara Treacy, Kerry O’Flaherty)

Men’s 800m (Mark English)

Men’s 400m hurdles (Thomas Barr)

Women’s 10,000m (Fionnuala McCormack)

Men’s Marathon (3 quota places)

Women’s 800m (Ciara Everard)

Women’s Marathon (3 quota places)

Boxing

Men’s Light Flyweight 1

Men’s Bantam 1

Men’s Light-Heavyweight 1

Men’s Welter Weight 1

Men’s Lightweight 1

Men’s Flyweight 1

Cycling

Road Race (2 places) 2

Women’s Keirin 1

Diving

3m Springboard 1

Equestrian

Eventing Team (4 athlete places) 4

Show jump one individual (and one horse) 1

Dressage One individual (and one horse) 1

Gymnastics

Women’s Artistic All Around 1

Men’s All Around 1

Hockey

Men’s Team (16 team places)

Modern Pentathlon

1 place

Rowing

Men’s Lightweight Doubles (2 athlete places)

Women’s Lightweight Doubles (2 athlete places)

Sailing

Laser Radial (1 athlete place)

Laser Standard (1 athlete place)

Sailing

49er (2 athlete places)

49erFX 2 places 2

Swimming

Women’s 100m Breaststroke 1

Men’s 100m Backstroke 1

Men’s 200m breaststroke 1

Total: 66