Paris 2024: Spread of Olympic triumphs has tricolour flying high

The commune of Vaires-sur-Marne is where the 2024 Olympic rowing and canoeing competitions are being held and lies to the east of Paris.

A picturesque enough spot bounding a lake, final preparations were still being carried out there upon my last visit, the day before the Opening Ceremony, when the Team Ireland canoeists and kayakers were going through their practice runs.

There was something else being practiced that day on the rowing side of the venue. Under the watchful eye of officials, a cohort of people in uniforms were folding the French and Olympic flags and hoisting them up and down the flagpoles - perhaps a future Olympic sport given it looked a tad more complicated than one would expect.

Fast forward seven days later to today and it was heartening to see the Irish tricolour going up alongside two other flags on those very same poles just to the left of the stands.

A swivel of the head to the right and down by the shoreline one could spy Ireland's latest rowing medallists Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch on a podium, bronze glinting on the front of their tracksuits, next to two other pairs, one in orange - no prizes for guessing the country - and the one in the middle in white and blue.

The latter was the Romanian men's double sculls pair who clinched gold in Thursday's A final at a sun-kissed Vaires-sur-Marne, while the Dutch had claimed silver.

Doyle and Lynch had breezed through their heat and semi-final but the duo from Banbridge, Co Down and Clonmel, Co Tipperary respectively had to work for their rewards in the final.

With the USA lurking with intent in the hope of nabbing the last medal on offer, Ireland's pair had to show resilience in the final stages of the race to claim the third spot on the podium and a first