Another succesful day for the Irish

Ireland secured their third medal of these games as boxer Darren Sutherland won his quarter-final fight over Venezuelan Alfonso Blanco. Sutherland wad beaten by Blanco in the World championships last year by seven points but came out with a game plan which didn't allow Blanco to box with any style and it showed as he only managed to score a single point. Darren on the other hand, picked his punches and was very powerful and accurate. After the second round, the result never looked in doubt as Sutherland kept piling on the points. Sutherland will now fight English boxer James Degale in the semi-finals on Friday morning. Darren has beaten Degale in four of their five previous meetings and on current form he should win again.

There were two track and field athletes in action today. Alistair Cragg finished sixth in his 5000 metre heat and qualified for Saturday's final.
Cragg advances to the final as he is one of the fastest losers, his time was actually faster than the winner of the two other heats. Cragg was distraught after the race as he thought that his time would not be quick enough but as it turned out, his heat was the fastest and he was the sixth fastest qualifier overall.

Thomas Chamney was not so lucky as he finished fifth in his 800m heat in a time of 1.47.66.
The Irish athlete has failed to progress as only the top two automatically qualify. Chamney's time was not fast enough to get into the next round as a fastest loser. It was a missed opportunity for Chamney to get a personal best and beat some quicker runners in the slow heat so he will be disappointed.

Irish Star Class sailors Peter O'Leary and Stephen Milne have failed to progress to the medal race following the final qualifying this morning. The duo finished 10th in race eight, 11th in race nine and 12th in race 10 at the Olympic Sailing venue at Qingdao. They finished the qualifying series in 13th place overall on a net total of 91 points, with the top 10 boats after the 10 qualifying races going into the medal race. After a good start to the series, they will be disappointed not to make the medal race but it was still a decent performance overall.

Irish in action tomorrow

There is only two Irish athletes in action tomorrow and both are outside medal chances.

Denis Lynch takes part in the individual show jumping final at 12:15. The pairing of Lynch and his horse Latinus have comfortably come through the qualifying rounds earlier this week, but it is thought a gold medal could be just beyond Lynch's reach with Germany's Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum is the clear favourite for the gold medal. But a medal won't come easy and two superb rounds are necessary if he is to be in with a chance.

Olive Loughnane takes part in the 20k walk at 02:00. Loughnane will be competing in her third Olympics and will be hoping for a much better performance than the last two. Olive should be up there and although a medal is a long shot, anything can happen such a technical event