The Royals at Paris 2024: The story so far

They fought the good fight, representing their country on the biggest stage of all.

They are the athletes with Meath connections who have already competed at the Paris Olympics.

Some did as well as could be expected; some did better, at least one suffered downright bad luck - and as we know without a smile from Lady Luck you have no chance.

Take equestrian Sarah Ennis, who is based in Batterstown. She put in years of hard graft to get to the Olympics and last Saturday she went out and took part in the dressage. It was part of the three-day eventing programme.

She picked up a hefty quota of penalty points and undoubtedly didn't do as well as she would have hoped but she did have the cross-country and the individual jumping events to come on subsequent days didn't she?

Well, not really - and this is where luck deserted Sarah. Her horse, Aciton Lady M, picked up an injury and was out of contention. Sarah's Olympics were over. Just like that.

Ryan Mullen, whose grandfather is from Duleek, took part the cylcing road-race time-trial on Saturday. His preparations for the Olympics also underlined the vagaries of sport.

He had trained in the melting heat of Andorra and Spain to be ready for the heat in Paris in July.

Instead his time-trial took place in cold, wet conditions. Dangerous too for cyclists. Not surprisingly he took a somewhat cautious approach as he sped through the 32.4km contre-la-montre from Invalides to Pont Alexandre III on the Seine.

He started seventh of the 34 riders and his time at the finish of 37:57.16 was the fastest at that stage and for at least 88 seconds he was the leading rider. Then some of world's fastest, specialists time-time riders got to work.

Mullen ended up in 12th place, a very respectable showing indeed.

"Between the drains and the corners and the cobbles, they f***ing threw everything at us," he said.

The Irish men's rugby sevens teams were out flying the flag even before the truly memorable Olympics opening ceremony took place last Friday.

The team - including Chay Mullins who has family connections with Meath - ended up sixth overall a four place improvement on their previous appearance at the Tokyo Olympics.

Mistakes cost the Irish dearly at these Games their hopes damaged with defeats to New Zealand and Fiji.

They led five of their six matches at half-time, and had the best defensive record of the 12 teams at the end of the pool stages.

The tournament proved to be a personal success for Mullins who finished as the competition's joint topscorer with five tries.

The Irish women's sevens team with Kathy Baker from Kilcloon on board lost their opening game to Great Britain 21-12 at the Stade de France in their historic first outing at the Olympics.

They returned to the famous arena three-and-a-half hours later to face South Africa and won 38-0.

Then, the following day, they lost to Australia 14-19 but greatly helped by that big win over South Africa they made it to the quarter-finals.

It was there the Irish were defeated again by the sensational Australians this time 40-7 and were left to play for placings.

In the battle for placings Allan Temple-Jones' side suffered a 19-7 defeat to the hosts France. This setback was followed by a 28-12 loss against Great Britain in the 7th/8th place play-off last Tuesday.

Still to reach the quarter-finals in their first ever Olympics was a tremendous achievement for Baker & Co.

On Tuesday Jenny Lehane stepped into the boxing ring. Jenny from Ashbourne had given up her teaching job two years ago to qualify for the Olympics. Now here she was in with the highly experienced, highly proficient Chinese Yuan Chang in the last 16 contest.

With shouts of "Jenny, Jenny, Jenny" ringing around Hall 8 of the North Paris Arena the Ashbourne woman certainly wasn't without support but Chang was relentless in picking up the points.

She was the better fighter on the day, nobody disputed that, but what a gutsy display from Lehane who stayed with her opponent despute the Chinese fighter delivering punches with the lightning speed of jet in full flight. Lehane will, no doubt, learn invaluable lessons from the experience. Lessons for life.

“It was just an incredible experience overall," she said later. "To come out to such a huge crowd, I’ve never fought before as many people before in my life and in such an amazing venue. Hearing so much support coming from the crowd was just incredible and I’ll be forever grateful for that experience alone.

“I felt I carried out the tactics well that we went through in the fight analysis last night. But I think I came up just a bit short against a very experienced boxer. Overall I gave everything so I can be proud of myself.”

Indeed she can.