Although our athletes performed with distinction and came agonisingly close to winning a priceless Olympic medal in London last week, when their achievements are measured against previous performances, a number of notable statistics emerge including the following:

Robert Heffernan became the 6th Irish athlete to finish in an agonising 4th place joining:

Eamonn Fitzgerald 1932 Triple Jump

John Lawlor 1960 Hammer

Eamonn Coghlan 1976 1500m & 1980 5000m

Sonia O’Sullivan 1992 3000m

Robert Heffernan & Olive Loughnane became the 5th and 6th Irish athletes to compete in 4 Olympics joining John Treacy, Marcus O’Sullivan, Sonia O’Sullivan & Terry McHugh.

Both now have the opportunity to become the first Irish athlete to compete in 5 Olympic Games in Rio in 2016.

Derval O’Rourke became the first Irish 100m Hurdler to make it out of the qualifying rounds.

Paul Hession was only .1 of a second slower than his first round in Beijing where he eventually missed out on a final place by one place.

Fionnuala Britton’s 10,000m time has only ever been beaten by Sonia O’Sullivan in Olympic Games and now means we have put 4 women inside the top 15 in this event.

Joanne Cuddihy became only the second Irish woman in history to make it out of the first round of the 400m along with the Great Maeve Kyle.

Deirdre Ryan and Tori Pena became the first Irish female athletes to compete in Olympic High Jump and Pole Vault respectively.

Robert Heffernan joined an illustrious list of Irish athletes who have set an Irish Record at Olympic Games

Robert Heffernan now has three top 10 performances in Olympic Games

Linda Byrne’s time in the marathon is the fastest ever run by an Irish woman at the Olympic Games

Patsy McGonagle became the first Irish man to manage the team in 3 Olympic Games.

Pierce O’Callaghan became the second Irish man to be appointed as an International Technical Official for two Olympic Games joining Dr Robert Rowlette who was appointed in 1924 & 1928.

Ireland are ranked 31st out of 216 nations in Olympic athletics history

Prior to Jessica Ennis’ gold medal in the heptathlon, the last gold medal won by Great Britain in a London Olympics was won by Tim Ahearne, a Limerick man who was representing Great Britain in the Triple Jump in 1908!

Harry Gorman attended his 14th Olympic Games!

- Pierce O’Callaghan

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