IRELAND OLYMPIC SHORTS
SATURDAY
BADMINTON
Scott Evans booked his place in the last-16 on Saturday when he defeated Brazilian Ygor Coelho de Oliveira 2-1 in Rio.
As expected, Dubliner Evans had the home crowd against him, but he prevailed after losing the first game, winning the decider 21-8. Evans, 28, now moves into Monday’s knockout stages.
CYCLING
Shannon McCurley exited from the Keirin in the first round at the Rio Velodrome.
Australia-born McCurley, whose parents hail from Belfast and Dublin, finished fifth in her first round heat and dropped into the repechage, which gave her a second chance to progress, but unfortunately she couldn’t take advantage of the opportunity.
McCurley’s exit brings Ireland’s involvement in cycling at this year’s Olympics to a close.
SAILING
Annalise Murphy will start Monday’s medal race in third position after a satisfactory performance in the final preliminaries of the Women’s Laser Radial over the weekend.
Murphy will claim a bronze medal unless she finishes five places or more behind fourth-placed Evi Van Ecker of Belgium. She is hoping to improve on her fourth-placed finish in London four years ago.
In a busy day for Team Ireland sailors, Ryan Seaton and Matthew McGovern continued their fine start to the Men’s 49er and lie in fourth place overall at the halfway stage. The Irish pair won race four and followed that up with 14th and 19th place finishes, with the highly fancied New Zealand team of Peter Burling and Blair Tuke leading the way.
Saskia Tidey and Andrea Brewster finished race six of the 49er FX in 14th place and now sit 12th overall at the half-way stage.
Finn Lynch’s Olympics came to an end in the final sailing race of the day after the Carlow man was handed a black flag disqualification and finished in 32nd overall, bowing out of the competition before the medal race.
SUNDAY
EQUESTRIAN
Ireland’s Greg Broderick and his mount MHS Going Global have progressed to the second round of the individual jumping competition.
Broderick and the 10-year-old gelding looked to be heading for a perfect round and were clear coming to the last line of fences at Deodora Olympic Park. However, the pair knocked the first and second part of the troublesome double just one fence from home to finish on eight faults.
The top 60 from the 75 starters advanced to Tuesday's second individual qualifier, after which the field will be whittled down to 45 for the third round on Wednesday. The top 35 will then go forward to Friday's individual rounds, where all qualifiers will start on a zero score as the medal race begins.
Ireland's Judy Reynolds and Vancouver K have already qualified in the top 18 for the individual dressage final in Rio, which takes place on Monday afternoon.
The #rio2016 Medal Table after Day Nine of the Rio Games pic.twitter.com/cdMyXFYBvW
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 15, 2016
