Olympics latest: Women's 4x400m relay team qualify for final, Adeleke finishes fourth
Ellen O'Donoghue
Team Ireland's women's 4x400m relay team have qualified for the Olympic final, finishing in third place in their semi-final in what was a very close race.
Sharlene Mawdsley's strong finish meant there was next to nothing at the finish line between the top three finishers.
Jamaica raced a time of 3:24.92, the Netherlands 3:25.03 and Ireland were just .02 of a second behind them, finishing with a time of 3:25.05.
Great stuff from the women, who raced in lane eight in heat two, with Sophie Becker starting before ing to Phil Healy who tagged to Kelly McGrory before Sharlene Mawdsley raced for the finish line.
Daniel Wiffen completed the marathon 10km swim in the River Seine this morning, finishing in 18th place, six minutes and 27.4 seconds after the overall leader.
The Olympic 800m freestyle champion and 1,500m freestyle bronze medallist is Ireland’s first ever competitor in marathon swimming at an Olympic Games.
Wiffen, who had never competed in an international open water race, took to the water at 6.30am Irish time on Friday morning, in his first "and last" open water race, telling RTÉ that "it was probably one of the worst things I've ever done," announcing his retirement from open water.
"But I'm happy I did it," he added, "but I'm never doing it again."
Wiffen's plans for the rest of his time in Paris is to "party. You'll see me in some nightclubs tonight, some Guinness," he laughed.
Kristof Rasovszky from Hungary won gold in the race.
The 10km route was on a 1.67km loop (six loops) in the River Seine, the original venue for the swimming competition at the Games in 1924, between the Pont Alexandre III (where the boats started out for opening ceremony), and the Pont de l’Alma.
Athletics
Rhasidat Adeleke finished fourth in the final of the 400m final in the Olympics.
Tokyo silver medallist Marileidy Paulino (Dominican Republic) won gold, followed by Salwa Eid Naser and Natala Kaczmarek.
Despite a brilliant run in his heat, and leading for a time in his semi-final, Mark English failed to qualify for the 600m final coming 7th in his heat.
Sarah Lavin from Limerick just missed out on a final place in the semi-finals of the 100m hurdles, in a hugely competitive race. She finished in sixth place.
Kate O’Connor has finished 14th in the Heptathlon.
Belgium’s Nafissatou Thiam won gold, matching her achievement in Tokyo three years ago, with Katarina Johnson-Thompson taking silver.
Golf
Stephanie Meadow and Leona Maguire will be hopeful of a significant change in fortunes when taking on round three of the individual singles at Le Golf National on Friday; a course that has not been kind to the Irish pair at these Olympic Games. Their rounds started at 8.22am and 8.11am respectively.
Track cycling
The Irish pairing of Alice Sharpe and Lara Gillespie will race against 14 teams in the always spectacular and highly entertaining Madison event at 5.09pm.
The Madison is a relay event race in pairs like a tag team with one rider competing while the other recovers by riding slowly around the top of the track, before the changeover via a ‘hand sling’ from their team-mate.
It’s a 120 lap, 30km points race with a sprint every 10 laps and the potential to make big points gains by lapping the main group.
