Fionnuala McCormack – Athletics

Possibly one of the most underrated Irish athletes of late, even if her brilliant back-to-back European Cross Country titles in 2011-12 never quite transferred to the track. Enormously experienced, Rio marks the third Olympics for the Wicklow woman, who ran the steeplechase in Beijing, and the 10,000m in London, finishing 15th. Almost certain to run the marathon, her best of 2:31:46 from 2014 is certainly open to improvement, her form boosted by a fourth place finish over 10,000m at the Europeans last month, the gold controversially going to a Kenyan-born Turk. A top-20 finish is certainly possible.