This is how it ends.
A throbbing stadium, in this case the Vélodrome National at Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, about an hour outside Paris. A national anthem in the background, in this case the Netherlands – it is track cycling after all. An Irish athlete standing in front of us sweating and spent, in this case track cyclist Lara Gillespie, who has just finished 10th in the omnium.
Gillespie left every last cell of herself on the track. She was fifth going into the points race and when she stole an early lap on the field, she hauled herself up to within three points of a medal. But the effort had hollowed her out – when the attacks started coming from everywhere in the last few laps, she had nothing left to counter them.
“I gave everything there,” she says. “The last few laps, I was in so much pain. I had a really bad pain in my stomach. You know when you can feel your voice in your breath? I really gave everything to put my best foot forward and unfortunately, it didn’t work out.
“I am quite disappointed, to be honest. I was hoping for a top-five result here today. I am proud of how I raced. I was brave. I took chances. I made a big mistake at the start by getting such an average result in the scratch race but lots to improve on. Lots of positives and negatives. Looking forward to learning from it.”
So that’s that, then. By a happy quirk of the calendar, Ireland were one of the relatively small number of countries to be involved on the first and last day of Paris 2024.
The 18 days that separated Harry McNulty catching the kick-off in the men’s rugby Sevens match against South Africa and Gillespie walking off the track here were so many things to so many people.
They will be remembered as a success, first and foremost. Everyone knows the headline numbers by now. Seven medals – four gold and three bronze – the biggest haul in Irish Olympic history. Medals in four different sports for the first time ever. World champions training on and becoming Olympic champions. No flukes, no flashes in the pan.
The underlying numbers tell a tale too. Three fourth-place finishes in athletics and sailing, all of which gave a flash of a medal when the fat was in the fire. A couple more genuine chances, in golf and slalom canoeing especially, that just slipped through Irish fingers. A bank of strong finishes across an endless array of sports – added to the seven medals, there were another 19 top-10s.
Now, some of those top-10s are more equal than others. The women’s track cycling team finished ninth of the 10 countries that entered the team pursuit and therefore didn’t make it out of qualifying. Jack Woolley was officially ranked seventh in his taekwondo class, despite losing both of his bouts.
But unlike previous Olympics, nobody feels they have to gerrymander the results here and present them as more than they are worth. Ireland did very well at these Olympics. The success began early and kept coming, which leads directly on to the second thing they will be remembered for.
Ireland’s Olympics were emotional. Deeply, achingly, beautifully so. The athletes who wore green over the past 18 days gave so much of themselves to the endeavour that you couldn’t but be moved by it. And nothing felt more real or more raw than Saturday night in the Stade de France.
The women’s 4x400m relay squad have become an incredibly rare thing in Irish sport – a team that has sucked in the Irish public wholesale without there being a ball involved. They have done it by continually upsetting predictions and outrunning expectations. But more than that, they have done it by laying themselves bare, on the track and off it.
In the mixed zone on Saturday night, the four of them came and opened their veins for us, putting no sort of brave face on the pain they were feeling. The race had finished around 40 minutes earlier but Sophie Becker, Sharlene Mawdsley and Phil Healy were all still in tears and Rhasidat Adeleke wasn’t far off. When Mawdsley started to blame herself, just as she had done on TV, the other three all moved to comfort her.
“We’re absolutely devastated,” said Becker. “I think in a few days’ time it’s not going to hurt as much. We’re world class, like. We knew if we ran a national record we’d be in the mix – 3.19! I don’t think any of us believed we would run 3.19, that’s just absolutely phenomenal.
“I think in the next few days it won’t hurt as much. Someone has to be fourth, it’s us today. It won’t be us next time. I’m so proud of us, we literally left it all on the track. I don’t think 3.19 was ever on the cards for us and now that we’ve run it, why can’t we go faster?
“You can see it on our faces – our mascara is all over the place. We’ve all had a bit of a cry.”
Not just you, Sophie. After the past fortnight, the national mascara is all over the place. But what other way is there to have it? Paris was great and Paris was emotional and it’s no good having one without the other. Ultimately, beyond the medals and the successes and the failures and everything else, Paris was alive.
Day by day, hour by hour, event by event. This was living.
Roll on Los Angeles.
