THE same image was displayed on laptop screens right across the press row on Saturday, August 3.
Irish tricolours and union flags being flown side by side as anti-immigration protestors from north and south came together at the top of Belfast’s Royal Avenue, united in hate.
It was a shocking snapshot of a dark day in the city’s recent history, one that would see violent clashes with police and businesses being burnt out before its end.
Paris has been no stranger to similar scenes down the decades, and watching events back home unfold from the French capital was a disconcerting, depressing experience – completely at odds with any sense of national pride the opening week of the Olympic Games had engendered.
While those sorry images were still being digested, Rhys McClenaghan took to the floor of the Bercy Arena below us. A picture of poise and purpose, the Newtownards gymnast belongs to a generation of Irish athletes who have shown our best side to the world, lighting up sport’s greatest stage.
That has been the big takeaway from Paris, even if the second week of the Olympics brought more of what we have become accustomed to through the years.
Outside of Kellie Harrington’s glorious gold at Roland-Garros on Tuesday night, there have been decent performances if little podium potential, all topped off with a generous helping of heartbreak as sprint star Rhasidat Adeleke and the women’s 4x400m relay team missed out on medals by the narrowest of margins.
But those opening nine days, and the first week in particular, brought a conveyor belt of success that at times seemed barely believable.
Mona McSharry kicked it all off with bronze in the pool before Daniel Wiffen’s breathtaking gold in the 800m freestyle was followed by bronze for rowers Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch, then Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy returning to their throne the following day as Amhrán na bhFiann caught the breeze at Vaires-sur-Marne.
Heads were spinning when McClenaghan added pommel horse gold. This was not normal – not by any stretch of the imagination. Ireland won four Olympic medals between 1956 and 1992, now there were four in four days.
But perspective was suddenly hard to find in Paris; maybe we were guilty of getting a bit greedy. If that was the case, it owed everything to the confidence this generation has inspired. Imagine expecting an Irishman to go and win gold in the pool?
Imagine being slightly deflated when, rather than claiming a second gold, Wiffen walked off with bronze around his neck after Bobby Finke’s world record-breaking exploits in the 1500m freestyle?
It was a sure sign of how much we had lost the run of ourselves. Giddiness had taken over. From no-hopers in so many Games gone by, we now had notions. And you know what? It was great.
While Harrington kept her cards close to her chest and O’Donovan indulged in a bit of Cork cuteness, overdramatically playing down the chances of the defending champions going all the way again, others walked the walk after talking the talk.
“I think we’re sick of being this nation that just settles for making finals,” said Wiffen.
In the past nine months he has smashed a world record that stood for 15 years, become a double world champion and won gold and bronze Olympic medals. Yet, coming into these Games, he seemed a bit frustrated that some people were mistaking his confidence for arrogance.
Maybe frustrated is the wrong word – surprised. Why wouldn’t I believe in myself? Why would my ambitions have any kind of ceiling? This is how his mindset has evolved.
“I feel like people kind of love me when I win but hate me when I lose,” he said weeks before Paris.
“Everybody wants me to win then when I lose, everybody thinks I’m really cocky and arrogant, but it’s only because I say how I feel. I don’t think I’m arrogant, I think I’m just quite confident.
“I mean, if you’re not going to be confident in yourself, you’re not going to win. That’s just how it works.”
As a result, watching Wiffen’s rise from such close quarters has been a joy.
He is unvarnished, he sometimes says things that might put PR people in a panic, but that is his unique appeal. He is off-the-cuff, enthusiastic, living in the moment and loving every second of it.
Even after “getting the shit kicked out of me” in Friday’s 10km Seine swim, there was no bursting the Magheralin man’s bubble. And there is little doubt he will stay that way, even after all the success he has enjoyed.
“Everybody just wants to put the nation out there,” he said.
“I think, honestly as well, we’re all a lot more competitive. When Mona swam it inspired me, then when I swam I’m sure it then inspired the rowers, and then there was this whole effect where everybody kept bouncing off each other.”
That ability to not just absorb, but actually embrace big stage pressure is not a trait that has been readily associated with Irish athletes in the past. Only the very best can take that on board and channel it into something positive.
Nobody carried a heavier weight coming into these Games than McClenaghan. He was, in the words of coach Luke Carson, “on fire” coming into Tokyo three years ago. That was supposed to be his time.
But 10 seconds into the pommel horse final, a slip of the finger and his dreams went up in smoke. How he has managed to rebuild in the time between has been testament to McClenaghan’s strength of character yet, even with two world golds won since, the Olympics cranks things up another couple of notches.
Every interview made mention of Tokyo. No matter what direction he turned, it was always there. He brushed it off, said the right things, but Carson offered a window into what toll that day had truly taken.
Stepping into the Bercy Arena, all those hard lessons brought him to where he wanted to be. McClenaghan zoned out everything else and pulled off a spectacular routine. The benchmark by the midway mark, nobody could catch him.
The tears that started to flow upon dismount said everything about the pressure on that moment. But he handled it, because that’s what the best do.
“I pick and choose from other athletes… not how they speak or how they present themselves but how their mind works. What you see behind their eyes is what’s interesting to me.
“It’s not the bravado that impresses me, it’s what they genuinely believe. I think we can all tell when someone is putting up a front.
“Of course I’m not shying away from what my goals were; I said I wanted to be the best in the world, I said I wanted to become an Olympic champion, but if I didn’t do that, like why wouldn’t I have done that?
“Obviously I’m standing here with a medal and saying that, but back then I was perplexed when people said ‘oh, you’re actually saying your goals’.
“Hell yeah I’m saying my goals! I’m making them as clear as possible. The mistake a lot of people make is making their goals all foggy and it takes away that responsibility you have to try to achieve that, and that’s when you veer off course and don’t even realise it.”
Responsibility is the key word here.
Because there can be no room in elite sport for any kind of excuse culture. Good, bad, indifferent, those who go to the top own it. That’s why it was refreshing to listen to Adeleke in the wake of Friday’s gut-wrenching 400m final fourth place.
Her time of 49.28 was the joint fastest ever to not medal at all Olympics, would have medalled in all previous Olympic 400m finals bar 1996, and would have been a gold medal winning time in Beijing, London and Rio.
Just 21, she has the world at her feet; the brightest of futures in front of her. But Adeleke doesn’t want the future, she wants the now. Softball questions opened the door for her to sugar-coat her first Olympic experience, to tell us how she will be back, that it’s only the start.
Not a chance.
“That’s not possible at the moment,” said the Tallaght woman when asked if there were any positives to be taken from Paris 2024.
“Some people, I guess, come here to participate and just happen to be at the Olympics, their goal is to become an Olympian. I knew what I was capable of, I was definitely looking at a podium, I definitely wouldn’t be happy coming fourth.”
Harrington’s Paris experience was a bit different to the others. Not one to ever make grand proclamations about doing this or that, she stayed away from the media glare as much as possible ahead of the defence of the Olympic lightweight gold won in Tokyo.
Three years older, at 34, and coming in off the back of a first defeat in three years, few were predicting she would be back at the top of the podium. Yet, while the boxing team struggled, the Dubliner established a momentum from the start that soon shifted any pre-competition concerns.
Between the ropes, Harrington was at her imperious best from the first bell at the North Paris Arena until the last in Roland-Garros on Tuesday night. As her belief soared, so did ours.
And, like Wiffen, McClenaghan, O’Donovan and McCarthy, it was Harrington’s tunnel vision and focus on the task at hand – nothing else – that drove her back to where she belongs, the perfect way to bring down the curtain on a glorious international career.
They have watched how others navigated their way, now all are pathfinders for the future. The task now is to make sure Ireland’s most successful Olympics is not just a one-off; that this is not just viewed as a golden generation in years to come.
Sport Ireland and the Olympic Council of Ireland have to tap into that feelgood factor and make it count. Paris 2024 has to be the start of something significant, not just a moment in time.
The athletes have done their bit.
“I’m sure me and Mona both inspired a huge generation of boys and girls who are going to get into the pool - I’ve got so many messages on Instagram saying ‘I’ve gone for a swim today because I watched you win’,” smiled Wiffen.
“Honestly, I think we’re the number one sport in Ireland right now, I don’t see any other sport getting as many medals as we have, so we should then be getting more funding into more swimming pools, then get more children getting into pools daily.”
“I want to do as much for this sport as possible,” said McClenaghan
“I want to bring [this medal] to hopefully every club in Ireland. I want to be really active in inspiring that younger generation, because this is a responsibility on my shoulders.
“I could lock my door and stay away, not talk to anybody for the next year or two, but I’m not going to do that. I’m going to be out, I’m going to be inspiring, hopefully, and I want as many kids as possible to touch this medal and see that it’s a reality as much as possible.
“There might be a kid in the crowd there that is saying, ‘Jesus that was amazing. That was so good, I want to do that.’ That might stick in their brain — into whatever sport they do, whatever job they do, career path they do. And that might inspire them to be the best they can possibly be.
“That shows the power of these Olympic Games.”
