The Five-Boats-Two-Swimmers-And-A-Dancing-Horse Blog - Irish at the Olympics: Day 6

The day started - where most of the Irish day would take place - on the water, as Sanita Puspure (left)  found herself relegated to the C/D final. She made the best of the situation though, and rowed rowed rowed her boat rather quickly down the stream, merrily merrily merrily merrily finishing first. Sure, it's a bit of a World's Tallest Midget situation, but it's a happy ending to her week. Another positive result came on the rapids, as Hannah Craig qualified for the final of the women's K1 Slalom. She snuck into the medal stage in tenth place, and tenth is exactly where she finished, but that still represented a successful effort for the Northern Irish woman, and she can leave with her head held high.

The swimmers had a somewhat more disappointing day, though Barry Murphy will presumably be pleased that his failure this morning was seen by more people than his failure on Saturday. His exit from the 50m free was followed by Melanie Nocher's elimination from the 200m backstroke. She took to Twitter to blame gastrointestinal issues over the past few days, and blamed it in detail. Vomiting, trips to the toilet, the #twitterontheshitter tag was never more applicable.

On the water, there were more races, and not a lot more to report. O'Leary and Burrows look good to make the top ten and progress to the medals race, currently standing in 9th, while the 49ers Seaton and McGovern are also ninth with two races remaining. Ger Owens and Scott Flanagan took a page out of James Espey's book, and are in 23rd position, though they have 8 races left to make up the difference.

Much to my chagrin, the dancing horses were back, and incredibly they're still going! Anna Merveldt finished 7th, and will progress to the medal stages later this week.

One man with no further part to play, however, is Darren O'Neill (right, in red), who became the first Irish casualty in the boxing ring. His comprehensive defeat at the hands of Stefan Hartel saw him exit the competition, but the Irish captain still has plenty to do supporting the rest of the team - Michael Conlon and Adam Nolan in action tomorrow.