And so the morning after the night before. And what a night it was as the Irish descended on the home of French tennis to acclaim Kellie Harrington after she made it back-to-back gold medals in the boxing ring.
The day dawned with a slight chill in the air, a rarity during this Olympic season. Still, conditions that many athletes would favour for the morning's track and field action at the Stade de France. It's good to get to the venue early, no queues at security, and there's even a few more words than normal from those doing the checking.
Sarah Lavin was the first of the Irish in action in the heats of the 100m hurdles. And it was all about the 'big Q' for the Co Limerick native. And she did that, qualify I mean, when coming second in her heat.
Hurdling is all about getting the technique right and that technique is being able to leap over the hurdles while maintaining speed, though the emphasis isn't on sprinting as much as you would think.
What the hurdler also has to figure out is their stride pattern; how many strides they need to take before reaching the next hurdle?
So, I researched this and apparently most competitors take seven to eight strides to the first hurdle in the 110m and then it's three strides to the remaining hurdles, though these figures also tend to apply across the other distances
As for the obstacles themselves, in the 110m event for men, the hurdle is 1.07m high, while it's 0.838m high for women in their 100m event. Both sexes participate over 400m.
The take-off point at each hurdle is approximately 2 metres. Your leading leg, as it passes over the barrier should straighten, and so your foot should land, so we are told, 1.2m beyond the hurdle. Your trailing leg is the spring to push your body towards each obstacle and knees should not be overly high - as it shortens the stride and impacts on momentum heading to the next obstacle. You should allow the knee to descend from the side once it skims past the barrier.
Post-race thoughts from Lavin
So, what the did Lavin have to say about the technique in Wednesday morning's heats?
"I do need to be a lot more aggressive and keep myself a lot tighter over the hurdles but yeah, job done," she told RTÉ Sport.
Being a lot tighter could see her make an Olympic final, which is her obvious goal at these Games.
Lavin is currently ranked 17th in the world, but it's small margins from there up to Puerto Rico's Jasmine Camcho-Quinn, who heads the latest standings - her personal best is 12.26, which is still shy of the world record 12.12, set by Tobi Amusan of Nigeria at the 2022 World Championships.
So Friday's semi-final will be a defining test for Lavin, as she told the press after today's heats.
"I think you have to risk it for a biscuit. Making that final, it's not beyond me judging by the times this morning. I’ll have to be absolutely firing on all cylinders.
"I'm going to need the race of my life."
Talking about technique, one was struck by Sophie O'Sullivan's running style during her run in the 1500m repechage.
O'Sullivan, daughter of Sonia and in her first Olympics, narrowly missed out on the semi-finals when finishing seventh on Tuesday. For practically 1450m of her repechage run, she was in contention for a top-three finish to qualify for the semis.
In observing her, she has a slightly laboured stride, and this became even more pronounced as she desperately battled for that third spot in the final 50m. All in vain, unfortunately, with Sarah Healy, also making her Olympic bow, finishing fourth in her repechage.
Such are the margins at the highest level.
For Mark English, he came so close to winning his heat of the 800m; initially a photo-finish appeared on the big screen as he and France's Gabriel Tual, one of the favourites for the event, battled it out for victory. The slimmest of margins saw Tual prevail by .02 of a second but English was ranked sixth fastest of the automatic semi-final qualifiers.
Like Lavin, the Finn Valley clubman will feel he's in the mix to make a final. Something to look forward to then on the final day of athletics action on the track if that comes to pass.
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