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Rowing: Ireland’s women’s four win bronze to take Ireland’s first medal of the Games (read full report here); Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy reach men’s lightweight double sculls final; Aoife Casey and Margaret Cremen fifth in women’s double sculls semi-final; Aileen Crowley and Monika Dukarska fifth in women’s pair semi-final; Philip Doyle and Ronan Byrne fourth in men’s double sculls B final

Boxing: Kurt Walker causes an upset to beat Mirazizber Mirzakhalilov and reach quarter-finals; Aoife O’Rourke fights Qian Li in women’s middleweight round of 16 at 10.18am

Hockey: Ireland women’s team lose 4-2 to Germany

Judo: Megan Fletcher beaten in round of 32

Rugby Sevens: Ireland lose 22-0 to Kenya

Sailing: Robert Dickson and Seán Waddilove 12th in 49er Race 2 with Race 3 and 4 to come

Shooting: Derek Burnett 28th after round two of qualifying

Cycling: Nicolas Roche racing in men’s time trial

Badminton: Nhat Nguyen faces Tzu-wei Wang for a place in the knockout stages at 10.40am

Swimming: Mona McSharry goes in women’s 200m breaststroke heats at 11.36am

Rowing
They left it nervously and perhaps suitably late because they finished incredibly strong, the Irish women’s four of Aifric Keogh, Eimear Lambe, Fiona Murtagh and Emily Hegarty winning themselves magnificent Olympic bronze medals down at Tokyo Sea Forest Waterway on Wednesday morning after a properly thrilling race too.
A first Olympic medal for the Irish in Tokyo, a first for Irish women’s rowing, with the promise of more to come right here quite soon.
Delayed by 24 hours due the typhoon warning, conditions still weren’t ideal, with a tricky tailwind to handle, and in truth the pressure was soon mounting. The Irish did not get a great start, sitting fourth at the halfway mark and then briefly dropping into fifth place behind China, with only Poland behind them at that stage.
Only that seemed to spur them on, as the young quarter dug within themselves and them some to overtake China first, before inside the last 200 metres crawling past Great Britain, who had been in that bronze medal position for much of the 2,000m race.
As expected the hotly fancied Australians took the win, just holding off the Dutch boat which claimed silver, with the Irish women just over five seconds behind in bronze, and just under a second ahead of Britain in the lane next to them, with China also closing fast. Their medal winning performance helps bring Ireland’s outright Olympic tally to 32, still across just six sports, just five years Ireland won a first ever medal in rowing, this also being bronze medal number 13 won in all.
Later, Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy booked their place in Thursday’s lightweight double sculls final, the Cork duo winning their semi-final with a 2021 world best time to boot of 6:05.33.



Fintan Mc Carthy and Paul O’Donovan reached the final of the men’s lightweight double sculls. Photo: Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images


They started with typical calm and composure, allowing Italy to get a brief lead on them, before slowly and then decidedly pulling away in the second half of the race, with the Italian boat finishing second just over two seconds behind, the Belgium pair claiming the other final spot in third. Germany won the other semi-final in a slower time of 6:07.33.
It wasn’t to be however for the Irish women’s double sculls duo of Aoife Casey and Margaret Cremen, who finished a close fifth in their semi-final, which means a B final awaits them next.
Casey and Cremen certainly put up a great effort, the top trio of Great Britain, France and the Netherlands setting a ferocious pace in part thanks to that tailwind, with only the top three progressing to the medal final. Close to line the Irish women were overtaken by Switzerland and ended up in fifth.
Likewise for Aileen Crowley and Monika Dukarska in their women’s pair semi-final, who also finished fifth in another highly competitive race won by outsiders Greece ahead of Great Britain and Canada with favourites Australia also missing out on the final in fourth.
Also down at Sea Forest Waterway, Philip Doyle and Ronan Byrne finished fourth in their double sculls B final earlier in the morning.
Boxing
In a major boxing upset, Ireland’s Kurt Walker blew open the featherweight division in Tokyo’s Kokugikan Arena when he beat the number one seed Mirazizber Mirzakhalilov.
The Irish boxer won on a split decision 4-1 over the Uzbek favourite in one of the upsets of the day.



Kurt Walker celebrates after winning against Mirazizbek Mirzakhalilov. Photo: Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images


Four of the five judges gave Walker the first round and three of the five the second round. In Olympic boxing that’s a 2-0 lead and everything had to go in favour of the top seed in the final round to make it through.
But Walker stuck to his tactics and held his composure with Mirzakhalilov unable to make any ground in the third, Walker winning it on four of the judges’ cards.
It is probably the most encouraging result so far for the boxing team as Mirzakhalilov was the 2019 World Champion and Asian games champion in 2018.
“Indescribable,” said Walker after the bout. “I just need to get my head level again, relax and recover. I’m buzzing.
“I was just trying to keep faith in my jab and body work. I knew I was fit and I knew I could do it for two rounds anyway and get the two round up. I knew he was going to push on strong so I’m delighted.”
Hockey
Ireland 2 Germany 4
Ireland went down 4-2 to Germany in their third Pool A game but their hopes of a quarter-final remain intact with two games remaining.
Germany’s opening goal came after 10 minutes when Ireland lost possession in the German half. A quick overhead up the attacking right channel had the Irish defence turning and chasing.



Germany’s Cecile Pieper celebrates after scoring a goal with Pauline Heinz during their win over Ireland. Photo: Frank Uijlenbroek/Inpho


When Lisa Altenburg ran across the crown of the circle all seemed in control but her hard backhand dive, low to goalkeeper Ayesha McFerran’s left foot, was perfectly placed.
Germany went into the second quarter holding their one goal advantage but Germany struck again, once more from what looked like an innocuous position. The ball was drilled into the circle from the right and Cecile Pieper stepped off her marker to touch it past McFerran for the second on 15 minutes.
It was critical that Ireland shore up their defence as the fourth place in Pool A, which would secure a quarter-final place, could come down to goals.
Germany went into the break 2-0 ahead but when Anna O’Flanagan was yellow carded early in the third quarter, Ireland conceded seven short corners and a penalty.
A drilled ball at the sixth corner was stopped by an Irish foot and Germany referred the decision of another penalty corner. It was changed to a penalty and Altenburg put away her second goal of the day to put her side 3-0 up.
Ireland quickly responded and Elena Tice grabbed one back from the next penalty for 3-1 and then Hannah Mcloughlin added another from a direct slap at the next corner for 3-2.
But Germany halted the come back when Franzisca Hanke added their fourth goal from play, disputed by Ireland, five minutes from the end for 4-2.
That’s how it ended with Ireland facing India on July 30th in a match that could decide if they go through to an Olympic quarter-final.
Judo
In the women’s judo 70kg round of 32 at the Tokyo Budokan, Megan Fletcher lost out at the death to the seeded Michaela Polleres, the 24-year-old from Austria, who delivered Fletcher with a Waza-ari, the second highest score in judo, to win the match.
The 31-year-old Fletcher, whose younger brother Ben will also fight in Tokyo, was duly distraught after the fight, suggesting these Olympics might well be her last competition.



Ireland’s Megan Fletcher (blue) in action against Michaela Pollerees of Austria. Photo: James Crombie/Inpho


“It was always going to be a really hard contest, it was a rematch from bronze medal at the World Championships six weeks ago,” said Fletcher, Polleres getting the better of her on that occasion too. “All of our career we have been having head-to-head fights. You have to be in the best position that you can, someone has to win and someone has to lose. It wasn’t meant to be today.
“I tried to close the space and came in high, which is somewhere where she is very strong and she caught me in those last final few seconds. I am very proud of myself, I have had a great career. It is great for our family. It was really hard watching Ben in Rio when I didn’t make it myself. I am very proud of him and will cheer him on tomorrow.”
Rugby Sevens
Ireland 0 Kenya 22
The Irish men’s Rugby Sevens side fell to a heavy 22-0 defeat to Kenya in their 9-10th playoff match in the Tokyo Stadium. It was the final day’s play of Ireland’s Olympic Sevens debut.
It was also Kenya who put paid to Irish chances in the pool phase of the draw with a late try that affected the Irish points enough to hold them back from progressing into the quarter-finals.



Kenya’s Willy Ambaka scores a try against Ireland. Photo: Shuji Kajiyama/AP Photo


This time it was all Kenya who ran in four tries to no response at all from the Irish team. Daniel Taabu, Johnstone Olindi, Willy Ambaka and Jacob Ojee grabbed a try each in the one way match.
Hugo Lennox summed up the mood of the Irish team afterwards.
“That game showed really what we were like through the whole tournament. We were lacking a bit of grit and we never really got going,” he said
“The Olympics is probably the biggest tournament we’re ever going to play in. I feel we’re embarrassed to be honest.
“It’s a poor result but you have to be grateful and honoured to be here. If you had told us 12 months ago we’d be going to the Olympics we would have said that would be a really big ask. France were a big force on the World Series at the time and it was incredible to turn them over on their own patch.”
Sailing
After their winning start in their Olympic debut in the sailing 49er class on Tuesday, Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove had to be content with 12th place in their second of 10 races, before returning to the water later in the day.