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Athletics: Mark English wilts in 800m heats; Sarah Lavin seventh in 100m hurdles heat; Ireland in mixed 4x400m relay final at 1.35pm.

Equestrian: Ireland 13th in dressage team event as Sarah Ennis laments new testing format.

Swimming: Daniel Wiffen and Danielle Hill round off Ireland's best Games in the pool since 1996.

Hockey: Former Ireland coach Graham Shaw steers Kiwis into knockouts; Ireland women face Britain at 12.45pm.

Golf: Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy hunt down Xander Schauffele.

Athletics
Every Olympic race has a subplot called regret and Mark English discovered that side of his 800 metres heat during another melting hot session inside the Tokyo Olympic Stadium on Saturday morning.
Admittedly in the form of his life, confidence seemingly searing, English simply left himself with too much to do in the final 100 metres, his hopes of advancing ending after he finished fourth in a time of 1:46.75. No comeback from that.
English started the fifth of the six heats knowing the top three were guaranteed to advance, plus the next sixth fastest times, only his heat ended up the slowest of the six (the only non sub-1:46), so it was Games over.
Tactically it certainly wasn’t perfect, and English admitted that afterwards too: despite getting out well, he was pressed to the inside and the back at 200m. After 300m Dennick Luke from Dominica hit the ground, and it stayed rough like that until the bell, which English passed in seventh.
Coming into the homestretch English did kick hard, only the three runners in front of him weren’t for catching - Jesus Lopez from Mexico taking the win in 1:46.14 ahead of Eliott Crestan of Belgium and Patryk Dobek of Poland, who finished just .17 of a second ahead of English.
“I’m gutted,” English said. “I was ready for that race. I just got outkicked, there’s nothing else to say, really. “The plan was to stay in contention without wasting too much energy. I felt like kind of got to the front at 200m and then they all just closed in and got in front of me. At that point, I didn’t feel like it was worth wasting energy to move out but over time I might regret that. It’s tough to take to be honest.”
As expected qualification was intense: World bronze medallist Ferguson Rotich from Kenya won the first heat in 1:43.75, the fastest time at the Olympics outside of a final; in second, Peter Bol from Australia clocked an Oceanian record of 1:44.13.
For English, the 28-year-old who took time out his medical profession to focus on Tokyo, there was also an admission he might have run things a little differently: “I probably would have kicked when from the Belgian (Eliott Crestan) kicked but everything is easier in hindsight. I know I had the quality to make it but it’s always the case with an 800m runner, it’s a different thing doing it. Lots of guys have the potential. But I just didn’t have it today unfortunately.



Mark English in action during his 800m heat in Tokyo. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA


“Look coming into the year my two goals were to qualify for the Olympics and get a new Irish record and I did that. To ask for anything else was always going to be a bonus. If I’d made the semi-final it would have been a bonus but it’s just like I felt like I could have made it. I’ve had luck in my career, today I didn’t. It’s a different thing when you go into a championship and you know you’re not in shape and you crash out.”
Later in the morning Sarah Lavin lined up in her heat of the 100m hurdles with another daunting task in terms of qualifying, particularly with world record holder Kendra Harrison in her heat. The American duly took the win in 12.74 seconds, as Lavin finished seventh in 13.16 seconds.
Only the top four places were automatic, although if Lavin had matched her best time of 12.95, run last month, she would have gone through.
“Disappointing, there’s no other way around it,” she said. “The one thing I pride myself on is bringing my best on the biggest day, to not do that is gutting. I think a final is beyond my reach but I do think a semi-final is within it and if I had been 12.95 I’d have been through. It’s my second fastest time ever but yeah, it’s disappointing.
“I can’t quite put my finger on it. The legs felt like jelly after, and normally they feel alive after a race. I was nervous but no more nervous than usual. It’s hard to say, I want to do better, I want to make Ireland proud, I want to do everyone around me justice as to the work they put in. It just wasn’t there today.”
Saturday morning also brought news of the first high-profile doping bust in Tokyo, Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare pulled from her 100m semi-final later in the day after the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced she had tested positive for human growth hormone back on July 19th.
Okagbare, at 32 old for a sprinter, won her heat in 11.05 seconds on Friday: it’s also the latest twist the latest twist in a troubled track and field campaign at the Olympics for Nigeria, as on Thursday, the AIU said 10 Nigerian athletes were among 18 competitors prevented from entering competition in Tokyo after failing to meet requirements for out-of-competition testing.
The world and Olympic medallist failed an out-of-competition test taken on July 19th and was due to compete in the women’s 100 metres semi-finals here today.
She won her race in the heats on Friday but was informed of her suspension by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) on Saturday morning.
Okagbare is highly decorated, winning on Olympic silver in the long jump at Beijing 2008. At the 2013 World Championships in Moscow, she won long jump silver and 100m bronze, also winning the 100m/200m double at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Once again it casts some doubt over the credibility of the 100m at the Olympics, particularly if she’d gone on to win a medal here, her failed test only then revealed afterwards
Equestrian
Ireland sit in 13th place in the team event in dressage after scoring 110.40 ahead of the cross-country stage of the competition.
Sarah Ennis and Horseware Woodcourt Garrison (ISH) scored 38.10 which ranked 50th overall individually with Ennis saying afterwards she was disappointed in the result
That scores her just behind Austin O’Connor and Colorado Blue on 38.00 and Sam Watson in 38th after his score of 34.30.
“Being very honest, I am very disappointed,” said Ennis afterwards. “We really thought we had him in a position to get a much better mark. He has been going amazing all week. He has been very happy in this heat, he is not struggling with it.
“He just got nervous when he went into the ring. It is very difficult, he is so he is and he gets nervous every so often. We just have to hope that the rest of it goes a bit better.”



Sarah Ennis and Woodcourt Garrison during the eventing team and individual dressage on Saturday. Photograph: Behrouz Mehri/Getty/AFP


Ennis also expressed her dislike for the new testing format, which is shorter and did not suit her or the horse.
“It’s not the nicest test. It is shortened to just under three minutes, usually a test is about six minutes long which gives you a chance to recover. You get into the ring and all the movements are thrown at you again and again.
“There are a lot of flying changes, four flying changes, and when you have a horse like mine who struggles with them, it is a bit of a disaster! It is a hard test.”
Swimming
Swimming Ireland brought its involvement in Tokyo 2020 to an end on Friday night with its best results at an Olympic Games since Atlanta 1996, when Michelle Smith de Bruin won three gold medals and a bronze.
Ireland earned one final in the breaststroke from Sligo’s Mona McSharry, two top 16 places and five Irish senior records.
The team signed off in style with Daniel Wiffen smashing the Irish Senior Record in the 1500m Freestyle with a time of 15:07.69, his second record of the Games.
The 20-year-old Wiffen set two new records at the Games, taking the 800m down to 7:51.65 and wiping nearly 10 seconds off his old 1500m mark.
Based at Loughborough University, Wiffen also won his heat in both events and moved up six places in the rankings in the 1500m to finish 20th overall.
“My target was to go and PB and try and get closer to the 15-minute barrier. I’m obviously closer now, seven seconds off,” he said. “The tactic was just to get in, if there’s a racer, race with them. If not, I had to assess it during the race and pick it up if I wasn’t going fast enough.”



Ireland’s Daniel Wiffen set a new senior record on the final day of swimming in Tokyo. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty/AFP


Danielle Hill also finished her Tokyo campaign on Friday in the 50m Freestyle. She posted 25.70 to be sixth in her heat and 33rd overall.
“Although I may be the fastest woman in Ireland, it’s a very different field out here,” said Hill. “I’m not quite there yet, but I can walk away with a few things to improve and definitely looking forward to next year.”
Irish attention will now turn to diving, which begins on Monday when Rio 2016 Olympian Oliver Dingley competes in the preliminary round of 3m Springboard and on Wednesday, Tanya Watson becomes Ireland’s first ever female diver to compete at the Olympic Games when she steps up for the preliminary round of the 10m Platform.
“This is our best Olympic swimming result for a long time and I am extremely proud of these nine athletes and all that they have achieved,” said National Performance Director Jon Rudd, who is now eagerly looking towards Paris in a shortened three year cycle because of last year’s postponed Olympics.
“An Olympic Final plus the equivalent of two Semi Finals (Top-16 finishes) is outstanding for us, as is achieving five Irish Senior Records across seven days of racing.
“We had 15 swims in total and in 13 we rose through the rankings or held our pre-meet position. It’s all fantastic work from and within this team - and we are excited at what this team can achieve in three years time when Paris comes calling”.
It was Ireland’s largest ever Olympic swimming team, with eight of the nine swimmers competing at their first Olympics. Ireland also fielded their first men’s swimming relay team and the first Olympic relay of any kind in 49 years.
Irish Senior Records set in Tokyo 2020
Daniel Wiffen - 800m Freestyle - 7:51.65 (7:52.68) Daniel Wiffen - 1500m Freestyle - 15:07.69 (15:16.90) Mona McSharry - 200m Breaststroke - 2:25.08 (2:25.92) Jack McMillan - 200m Freestyle - 1:46.66 (1:47.10) Shane Ryan - 100m Butterfly - 52.52 (52.58)
Hockey
Former Irish women’s hockey coach Graham Shaw successfully lead New Zealand through to the knockout stages of the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Although Shaw’s side went down to China in their final pool B game, they advance on better goal difference and will meet either the Dutch or Germans in the quarterfinals.
Shaw coached The Irish women to their World Cup success in 2018 when they won their first ever World Cup silver medal by making it through to the final against the Netherlands.
He then left Ireland to coach the New Zealand national side early the following year, having coached Ireland since 2015 and played for the Irish men’s side for many years before that.
His departure at the time came as a bolt from the blue after his stock as an international coach rocketed after London, and when Mark Hager resigned from his New Zealand post in January of 2019 to take over as coach of the British and English women’s teams.
It has become increasingly common for athletes ands coaches to represent other countries and Shaw is not the only Irish coach at the games working with another country. Billy Walsh, who lead Irish boxing to its most successful Olympics in London 2012, is currently coaching the USA boxing team.
Ireland has also benefited from non Irish talent coming into Irish sport. Rowing has Italian coaches in pivotal positions under High Performance Director Antonio Maurogiovanni and just completed its most successful Olympics, while Irish swimming with England’s Jon Rudd in charge has just had its best games in 25 years.
England’s Damian Ball is also in charge of the Irish diving program, while Sean Dancer, coach of the Irish women’s hockey team is from Australia.
On the pitch David Ames and Ian Sloan are two hockey players that lined out for Ireland early in their careers but are now playing with the British side as is Saskia Tidey, who sailed for Ireland in Rio 2016 and is now competing with the British team in Tokyo.
Siblings Ben and Megan Fletcher moved in an opposite direction. Both of them represented England and Britain early in their judo careers before they declaring for Ireland and took part in Toko 2020.