With the end of the Games comes the closing ceremony, there will be a last goodbye from the city of Tokyo as they officially pass the torch to Paris for 2024. The athletes of each nation will walk through the stadium as well, brandishing their flags with pride

During the opening ceremony, boxers Kellie Harrington and Brendan Irvine were named as the Team Ireland flag bearers.

That was more than two weeks ago and now Harrington is in the lightweight final tomorrow morning. While Irvine was unfortunately knocked out in the opening bout.

Now, Team Ireland have chosen an athlete that stole their hearts recently and represents all that it means to be an Olympic athlete to be their next flag bearer.

The women’s modern pentathlon athlete, Natalya Coyle was named to carry the tricolour during the closing ceremony. She competed very impressively throughout her competition only to be hard done by her horse in the ‘luck of the draw’ show jumping event.

Coyle spoke honestly and courageously after the finish of her event at her third Olympic Games, after what seemed so unfair, she put a positive spin of it.

'It's not the way I wanted to finish out my career' – @Natalyacoyle incredibly disappointed with how the showjumping transpired #Tokyo2020 #RTESport #modernpentathlon #RTESport

Watch – https://t.co/lLKXNhKPkF

Updates – https://t.co/rrhIHZ9LpR pic.twitter.com/iQFxefud1H

— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 6, 2021

The closing ceremony will take place at 12:00 on Sunday 8th August. The two and a half hour ceremony will include a light show and dancing. It will also have the walk of flags and the passing of the torch to the Paris officials.

Until then, Ireland still have plenty of Olympic sport to keep us busy tonight.

@Natalyacoyle will carry the Irish flag at tomorrow's #tokyo2020 closing ceremony #olympics #RTESport pic.twitter.com/1ItRXnN59T

— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 7, 2021

Upcoming Olympic Events – August 7/8th

Men’s Marathon Final – 23:00 – Stephen Scullion, Paul Pollock, Kevin Seaward

Women’s Omnium (Cycling) – 02:00 – Emily Kay

Women’s Lightweight Final (57-60kg) – 06:00 – Kellie Harrington

Kellie Harrington will fight for Gold!! pic.twitter.com/pAdcWzhUIT

— the Irish World (@theirishworld) August 5, 2021

The post Coyle named Irish flag bearer for closing ceremony appeared first on SportsNewsIreland.

All the points accumulated by the athletes are now counted up. For each point you are behind the leader, that is a one second delay at the start of the Laser run race.

To catch up on how Natalya Coyle has done in the modern pentathlon so far, see Modern Pentathlon: Coyle’s run ruined by horse

This event is a fast 3.2km race with four shooting stops where athletes have to hit five targets. As soon as the athlete hits the target, they can get back to running.

The winner of the race would win gold as this was the decider of the whole days work.

#ModernPentathlon

round

Sport can be so cruel. @Natalyacoyle was lying fourth after the fencing round but has dropped to 19th following the horse she was assigned refusing jumps. The time penalties occurred from this mean that in the Laser Run she needs to make up 64 sec pic.twitter.com/8kv9Ey6SHO

— Team Ireland (@TeamIreland) August 6, 2021

Women’s Pentathlon: Laser Run

Natalya Coyle started the race in 19th place with a 64 second delay on leader Russia’s Batashova. With a mountain to climb, by the second shooting drill, the Irish woman had caught up by two seconds.

The battle for top five was hotly contested over the first 1500m until Team GB’s Kate French broke out in front. She bossed the second half of the course, completing the race 15 seconds before anyone else to take gold.

The real comeback story of the race was Lithuania’s Laura Asadauskaite who started in 13th place, 52 seconds behind first but managed to blitz the field and finish in second.

Hungary’s Sarolta Kovacs got a well-earned bronze medal finishing 16 seconds off French.

Coyle made it to the finishing line after 14:12 seconds in 24th place. A heart-breaking end to her third Games after being in such a good position going into the third event.

Medal winners are celebrated automatically, and rightly so, but let’s not forget athletes like Rhys McClenaghan , Jack Woolley, Sanita Puspure & Natalya Coyle whose games didn’t go to plan, despite 5 years and countless hours of gruelling preparation & sacrifices for #Tokyo2020

— Evanne Ní Chuilinn (@EvanneNiC) August 6, 2021

This event has proven to be one of the most tense and physically exhausting events of the Olympics. Each of the 36 athletes completed four events in five different sports in the space of five hours.

With three Olympics done, Natalya Coyle is still only 30 years old. There is only a three year wait until we see her back in the modern pentathlon finals again.

We are so proud of you @Natalyacoyle. @Kings_Hospital @KingsHos_Sport #Olympics #Olympics2020 pic.twitter.com/xFcs2MaIAt

— KHPPU (@KHPPU) August 6, 2021

The post Modern Pentathlon: Coyle finishes third Olympics in 24th appeared first on SportsNewsIreland.

Team Ireland’s Natalya Coyle had put herself in a great position after finishing third the fencing ranking round yesterday. To read more about that challenging 35-bout event, see Team Ireland Pentathlete Natalya Coyle Off To Good Start.

For the modern pentathlon, Tokyo had created a large stadium that could contain all the events. Although there was no crowd but the other athletes and coaches create a small but noisy atmosphere in the place.

This event has a points base system where athlete’s are scored on their attempts in multiple fencing bouts, their times in a swimming race and their points and times in a horse show jumping round.

These scores will decide where the athletes start for the final laser run race.

Natalya Coyle was already buzzing after her brilliant performance in the fencing round of the pentathlon, and then she learned Kellie Harrington had won her 60kg boxing semi-final. The gasp!

[@RTEsport] pic.twitter.com/Tc97appkqy

— Gavan Casey (@GavanCasey) August 5, 2021

Women’s Modern Pentathlon

Swimming 200m Freestyle

First up at 06:30 this morning was the 200m swimming heats. This was one of Natalya Coyle’s weaker events but she herself in good standing from the fencing yesterday.

Coyle was swimming in lane five of heat four. Unlike previous years, this competition took place in a 25m pool so the times were slightly faster and new Olympic records were set each heat.

Coyle swam a good race always remaining in the middle of the pack, she showed no sign of slowing and finished in 2:13.88. This earned her 283 points which had her in thirteenth place after the swim.

Russia’s Gulnaz Gubaydullina was the fastest swimmer overall in a time of 2:07.31 and received 296 points.

Fencing Bonus Round

This event took place only 45 minutes after the swimming had finished, giving the athletes little time to prepare. The fencing round is done in a winner stays on style where the lowest ranked from the previous days fencing would start.

After finishing third yesterday, Coyle would face the winners of bout 32 which was Russia’s Uliana Batashova. The Irish woman took to the piste and got the touch to earn her an extra bonus point.

She went more attacking in her next bout against South Korea’s Sehee Kim. Unfortunately the second best fencer picked her off with less than five seconds to go.

Coyle still finished the fencing round with 239 points to add to her total.

After a brilliant start to her Olympics, Natalya Coyle lies in third place in the modern pentathlon standings having impressed in this morning's fencing round.

pic.twitter.com/xQqJv2vgb3

— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) August 5, 2021

Riding Show Jumping

The last round of preliminary events took place a half an hour later. In the show jumping round, athlete’s are given a horse at random with only a few minutes to get to know them.

Coyle drew horse Constantin who previously gave a Uzbekistani competitor trouble. The Irish woman rode very well but had the same problem with the horse on the last few jumps.

After the horse refused three jumps, knocked a fence and went over the allowed 80 seconds, Coyle received 234 points.

To emphasis how this event is the ‘luck of the draw’, the gold medal favourite was forced to retire by her horse, getting 0 points and moved back to 31st place overall.

When you only have 20 minutes to bond with the horse before the game.#ModernPentathlon #Olympics ##Tokyo2020 pic.twitter.com/97KsDQryUA

— (@alifahfdz) August 6, 2021

After the mornings events, Coyle finished in 19th place and will go on to the Laser Run later today.

Tune in to RTE 2 to watch the Women’s Laser Run final at 11:30 this morning. Could Natalya Coyle go one step further than her sixth place finish in Rio?

The post Modern Pentathlon: Coyle’s run ruined by horse appeared first on SportsNewsIreland.

Coyle goes into day two lying in joint third position on the overall leaderboard with a total of 238 points.

Over the course of 17 rounds, the athletes competed in one-minute bouts against each other, with the total victories and defeats resulting in points that are accumulated and contribute to the overall total – Coyle’s final points reflect a total of 23 victories/12 defeats.

The Meath athlete took to the piste in confident style, immediately moving towards the top of the leaderboard, maintaining her place in consistent fashion throughout the bouts, with a really strong showing in the first half of the competition.

Keeping her composure over the course of the session, Coyle said that she enjoyed her competition opener.

“It was really good,” Coyle said. “I don’t even know the results yet, I don’t think I’ll look, because Pentathlon is one out of five. I know it started off really well, and I just feel really happy. I’m really glad to have done all the training and my coaches justice, so I’m really happy with that anyway.”

Coyle started strong and kept the pressure on throughout the round.

For the first time the fencing event was held on a different day to the remaining swim, horse ride, and laser run, something she took advantage of: “I was very pumped the whole way through there.

“Normally I try to conserve some energy, but we have more time, so I was pretty excited for each hit. It’s a long time where there’s a lot of mental energy expended. I think it’s three hours, but it flies by, I can’t believe it’s over.”

Fencing is a discipline that Coyle has done specific work on over the past few years, and that work was evident with today’s performance.

“I was really lucky in the Team Ireland holding camp in Fukuroi that I could bring some good fencers, and I think it showed out there in the piste today, it definitely helped.

“It’s the Olympics, the pinnacle of every sport, so you’re pretty much up for every fight.

“I think the big thing is to not ride every loss and normally say don’t ride the highs, but I think I rode them pretty well in the arena. Normally I try to stay calm in between rounds and just let it out on the piste.”

Tomorrow, Coyle will contest the 200m Freestyle Swimming, Fencing Bonus Round, Show Jumping and the Laser Run, and the athlete with the highest number of points at the end of all disciplines is deemed the winner.

The post Team Ireland Pentathlete Natalya Coyle Off To Good Start appeared first on SportsNewsIreland.

This will be the Meath woman’s third Olympic Games, most recently she finished 6th overall in Rio 2016. The 30-year-old will be looking to improve on this yet again this year.

This season’s modern pentathlon has 36 athletes and consists of a five disciplines: swimming, fencing, riding, running and laser shooting.

The beginning of the ranking process was 35 fencing bouts for each athlete spread across three and a half hours this morning. Each athlete would score points for their victories which would be totalled up for their ranking position.

Coyle has shown her determination and excitement to be at these Games, to read more about Team Ireland Triple Olympian Natalya Coyle Ready For Tokyo, click here.

#ModernPentathlon #Fencing  Round

Consistency is key. Experience, composure, calm under pressure. After ten rounds in the Women’s Individual Fencing Round Natalya Coyle is lying in fifth place with 184 points.

V – D
14 – 7

Seven rounds to go #TeamIreland #Tokyo2020 pic.twitter.com/xlmD0RLNxd

— Team Ireland (@TeamIreland) August 5, 2021

Modern Pentathlon – Women’s Fencing Ranking Round

Coyle started poorly getting two loses in her first two bouts but picked herself up and won the next five. It is clear to see that fencing is something that the Meath woman focused on in preparation for these Games.

At the halfway stage of 18 bouts, the Irish woman had beaten her opponents 13 times. After this point, the athletes began to tire and this became a war of attrition.

As Coyle fought to keep up with the demanding fitness needed for the event, some of her performances suffered. She started losing every second match as she pushed herself hard for victory.

Coyle found another burst of energy when there was an end in sight two hours later as she won her last five bouts. She finished the round of matches with a total of 23 victories, showcasing her fencing talents.

These hard fought performances had gotten Coyle a joint third place finish at the end of the fencing Ranking Round with 238 MP points.

The only other athletes to better her were South Korea’s Sehee Kim and Germany’s Annika Schleu with a staggering 274 points.

Nothing is won yet and the ranking round in fencing does not express an athlete’s overall strengths. Coyle will need to rest and recuperate for the finals coming up tomorrow, knowing she has put in a tough shift this morning.

#ModernPentathlon

An impressive first round with the Women's Individual Fencing Ranking Round, Natalya Coyle is lying in joint third place going into day 2! A steady and determined performance sees the Meath woman score a total of 238 points!! #TeamIreland #Tokyo2020 pic.twitter.com/UjdWQf0ecU

— Team Ireland (@TeamIreland) August 5, 2021

Upcoming Schedule for the Women’s Modern Pentathlon finals

The post Modern Pentathlon: Coyle fences into third in Ranking Round appeared first on SportsNewsIreland.

The post Team Ireland Triple Olympian Natalya Coyle Ready For Tokyo appeared first on SportsNewsIreland.