Gold medal winner Cian O'Connor will lead the homecoming of Ireland's Olympians when their plane lands at Dublin Airport this afternoon.
The showjumping hero is one of 39 athletes and officials on an Alitalia flight, due to touch down at 2.15 p.m. After a press conference inside the terminal, the group will pass through the arrivals area, where hundreds of people are expected to greet them at around 3.15 p.m.
The Government was last night finalising plans for a State reception for all the Irish athletes on Wednesday evening, but no other details were available. The team is also expected to be invited to Áras an Uachtaráin, probably on Friday.
Today's homecoming is a marathon affair, with passengers required to turn up at the airport in Athens at 3 a.m. Greek time, for a 7 a.m. flight. "There are 9,000 athletes flying out of Athens on Monday and about 600 flights, so we have a four-hour delay at the airport," said a spokesman for the Olympic Council of Ireland.
The team will then put down in Rome before completing its journey home.
Not all the Irish contingent - which totalled about 100 - will fly in today. A few are already home, some have begun holidays in and around Greece, while smaller groups are due to return tomorrow and Wednesday.
Cyclist Ciarán Power, whose 13th place in the Olympic road race was one of Ireland's better performances, is in New Jersey. And Jessica Kurten, who was strongly fancied for a medal after the first round in the show-jumping, is returning to her base in Germany.
However, today's arrivals will include Kevin Babington, who finished just outside the medals in Friday's showjumping event, and team trainer Eddie Macken, who was controversially sacked earlier this summer, but reinstated.
