10.43 – So a heartbreaking morning, no doubt, for Deirdre Ryan but the focus now turns to Katie Taylor’s gold medal showdown with rival, Sofya Ochigava, this afternoon. The pair will renew hostilities at 4.45pm at the ExCel Arena. Have you heard what the Russian’s been saying?

“It’s difficult. When you go boxing against Katie Taylor, you’re not boxing with her. You’re boxing with all judges around the table, and it’s difficult boxing against all the system, but I will try like all other girls. I’m sure Taylor will come out swinging. She knows the opponent’s score has been preset to minus 10. AIBA’s goal is to give her gold. AIBA, they want to make her a superstar, but when a boxer goes in the ring, it’s not important if she is world champ or not world champ. “

Check out more here.

11.15 – Eamonn Coghlan is currently speaking, from London, to Peter Collins on RTÉ and the senator has certainly learned how to filibuster in Leinster House. He says: ‘never mind Molly Malone, never mind Annie Moore who left Cobh… we’ll be building a statue for Katie in Bray’. Let her win the gold medal first shall we?

11.30 – GOLD – A few medal wins to report. Australia have won the men’s canoe sprint kayak four, Danuta Kozak of Hungary takes the women’s canoe sprint kayak single and the German’s claim victory in the women’s canoe sprint kayak double.

In the women’s high jump, 14 athletes successfully cleared the 1.93m mark but there are only 12 spots in the final. However, Ariane Friedrich of Germany doesn’t make her third attempt and misses out.

11.42 – In around about five hours, the whole country will come to a standstill as Katie Taylor bids to win her first Olympic gold at London’s ExCel Arena. But who is her opponent Sofya Ochigava?

Read Niall Kelly’s profile of the Russian fighter here:

She’s a two-time world champion having won gold at 52kg in 2005 and at bantamweight (54kg) in 2006. Ochigava then won a world bronze at featherweight (57kg) in 2008 before making the step up to challenge for lightweight honours.

Beaten 11-7 by Taylor in Qinhuangdao in May, she is currently the world silver medallist at 60kg.

11.46 – The men’s 4x400m relay heats are up and running. During the first race, Team GB, Trinidad and Tobago and Cuba have secured qualification while Belgium could still go through.

Blade Runner Oscar Pistorius was due to take part for South Africa but one of his team-mates falls, meaning he doesn’t get the chance to compete.

Team USA and Jamaica up next in Heat 2.

12.20 – Deirdre Ryan has been speaking to our man Will Downing after she was unable to make the women’s high jump final. Read what she said here:

I had two good attempts at 1.90 – the first and the third – but my second attempt I was too far away and had to move the mark forward.

“I was struggling technically. The legs felt good today but the rhyme was off and so was the timing. On the third attempt, I parallel planted and travelled across the bar too much.”

12.42 – US GYMNAST MCKAYLA Maroney was not impressed during the presentation of her silver medal. Thanks to the magic of Tumblr, here are several other events which she isn’t too fussed about…

12.43 – Praise from the international media has been flooding in for Katie Taylor over the past couple of days. Read this Sports Illustrate article, which calls the Bray boxer one of the most popular athletes at the London Olympics.

Katie Taylor popped out of the tunnel and, suddenly, you couldn’t hear your mother if she was standing in front of you with a bullhorn.

Looking for the most popular athlete at the Olympics? Any list has to include Taylor, an attractive, brown haired, dark eyed 26-year-old Irish woman who happens to be, pound-for-pound, the best women’s boxer in the world. On Wednesday, Taylor cemented her place at the top, pummeling Tajikistan’s Mavzuna Chorieva 17-9 to punch her ticket to the gold medal round.”

12.56 – There is a 10km open water marathon swim going on over at Hyde Park, where the endurance athletes are 53 minutes into the gruelling event.

It looks like the perfect job for Ireland’s Steve Redmond – the first man to complete the Oceans 7 challenge!

13.47 – BREAKING: Oscar Pistorius and the South African men’s 4x440m relay team will compete in Friday’s final after they win an appeal over Ofentse Mogawane being tripped. Kenya have been disqualified.

13.56 – Afternoon, folks. Sean Farrell here to carry the flog forth on this day of reckoning for Ireland’s Olympic hope.

The women’s open water swimming race is just pushing the 1 hour 55 mark and we still don’t know how they do it. Bulgaria’s Eva Risztov is just about in the lead nearing the finish.

14.02 – And there’s the painful and gruelling sprint to the finishing mark.

Rizstov held on, slapping the board first two strokes ahead of Italian, Martina Grimaldi while US swimmer Haley Anderson beat Team GB’s Kerr-Anne Payne to the bronze.

The winning time, a wearying 1:57:38. Swimming hats off to these women, that was tough.

14.09 – If you’ll excuse us some bias towards Oscar Pistorius, isn’t it great news that South Africa have been reinstated in the 4×400 relay. Here’s the full story.

14.26 – RTE are bet into some indoor men’s volleyball – Russia have started well and lead Poland 23-13 – but over in the Stadium, the men’s decathlon is in the pole-vault stage. Damian Warner has just failed with his second attempt at 4.8 metres. The Canadian currently resides just outside the medal position with American Ashton Eaton having cleared the same height. Current leader, Trey Hardy is up next… and he clears it.

A big step towards gold with this and two events yet to be decided.

14.32 – Neal Mann, once of Sky News now of the Wall Street Journal is touring the Olympic Park. In the hot, hot sun he was unlikely to encounter many grumbles. Undeterred, he approached the most Mexican looking man he could find and asked about his Olympic experience. He was loving every minute, except for the disastrous ticket procurement process.

14.39 – Just over two hours to go and Gavin Noble – still absorbing his 23rd place finish in the triathlon – feels like a little blond boy in a wondrous chocolate factory.

Everybody within 2,000 miles of London seems to want a ticket to the ExCel Arena today. We can only assume that this Russian journalist wasn’t willing to part with his ticket. That’s the Cead Mile Failte we’re famous for.

15.02 – Tension is building in TheScore HQ and who better to heighten any tension with a quick phone-call than Liam Neeson.

H/T @DarraghDoyle and @racoAVFC for this meme.

He knows KT don’t play. She has a particular set of skills. Skills she has acquired over a long career. Skills that make her a nightmare for people like Sofya Ochigava.

Click here if you don’t get the reference.

15.15 – In other news: nice day for a wee BMX race… oh. Ouch.

The men have endured carnage as they piled up on this bend. The leader streaked away unharmed.

15.32 – The BBC are locked onto more horse dancing / dressage and Team GB’S Laura Bechtolsheimer has just taken the lead in the Grand Prix freestyle portion. That guarantees her a medal with only two riders to come.

15.44 – Back to the stadium and the male decathletes are aiming for 5.2 metres. Ashton Eaton has cleared it, but nobody else thus far. That will put him top of the standings ahead of Trey Hardee. Ukraine’s Oleksiy Kasyanov resides in third.

15.51 – *Turns to John Fashanu voice* AWOOGAA! This is your 60 minute warning. In case you can’t sprint to a TV in time here’s a couple of online links where you can catch the action – while keeping TheScore.ie liveblog open in the other tab, hopefully.

H/T @DarraghDoyle for this one too. Top work.

Katie fights at 16:45 GMT.

“I asked on twitter for links and here they are:

http://www.aertv.ie/#rte-two – RTE 2 Olympics coverage

http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html (no commentary)

blubloblu tells me

The eurovisionsports link has all (except Irish, for broadcasting rights reasons) the european national broadcaster streams under “EBU members live”.

http://www.rojadirecta.me

The YouTube Olympics channel

http://www.vipbox.tv – for Australians, apparently

http://www.filmon.com/#BBC-One – BBC One coverage, though you will need to pay if you choose HD. SD is free”.

Any more?

15.56 – It’s looking like BMX racing – like its snowboarding equivalent – is becoming a sport we all watch just to see the crashes. Here’s one some guy watched on the TV earlier.



YouTube credit: kevthehairyaper

16.08 – Back to the decathlon at hand and Cuba’s Gonzalo Barroilhe has vaulted over 5.4 metres, he now leads the event with Eelco Sintnicolaas his only competition left on 5.3 metres.

16.12 – You just never know who has wrangled a ticket for the big KT bout in the ExCel…

16.24 – RTE’s pre-fight coverage has begun with Mich Dowling, Bernard Dunne and Kenny (yellow tie) Egan on the sofa. Michael Carruth was spotted outside the ExCel Arena earlier.

Our TheJournal GP is on standby as heart-rates have endured a marked increase over the past few seconds. Over on the BBC they’ve moved into the Arena to speak with those venerable talking heads of Irish boxing, Ed Byrne and Dara O’Briain, but they’re focusing on another fight, for now.

16.33 – Surely someone out there is wondering what the hell happened in the dressage. No? well here it is anyway.

The final two riders did indeed overtake Bechtolsheimer, Adelinde Cornelissen first and then Team GB’s Charlotte Dujardin waltzed her way to go.

Now, in the words of young Master Simpson: “Well, back to the fight.”

16.39 – Nicola Adams is going to town on China’s Ren Cancan at the minute in the flyweight final. It’s getting the fight fans whipped up into a nice fervent frenzy.

16.46 – There’s the decision, 16-7 to Nicola Adams another gold for Team GB and the partizan Irish crowd roared her all the way. That’s a nice little warm-up exercise for them.

Time for the real thing. And here she comes.

16.54 – Ochigava doing her best to hold on and the tactic is working; Katie Taylor is behind. 4-3 after round two.

16.58 – Round three is won comfortably by the Bray woman. She leads 7-5 going into the final round. Cue the Irish fans for the final round.

17.06 – Taylor leaps for joy in mid-ring, not in Michael Carruth style she’s her own woman, and steps outside the ropes to offer her trademark “Come on!!!” to the ecstatic crowd. The lights are down so it’s a barrage of noise from the darkness.

Unbelievable scenes.

17.50 – Taylor can’t keep the smile off her face as the noise heightens and she steps onto the podium. Taylor says “Oh my God” and points to the sky before the gold is finally hung around her neck.

She’s currently belting out the national anthem… amazing scenes.

18.08 – Our anthem quickly replaced by an encore of Ole, ole ole as Taylor leaves the ring to do a lap and thank the crowd. She recognises a handful of faces dotted around the front row, smiles, points and moves in closer to them.

She’s a class act this girl. Inside and outside of the ring.

18.17 – How on earth do we follow that? RTE are currently doing the rounds bringing you action from Bray and have now turned the clock back to repeat the fight in full. We can enjoy it this time.

18.22 – Aileen Morrison has pretty much summed up the mood of the nation. This tweet, though, didn’t come in soon enough to make the cut for our slideshow on how the rest of the Twittersphere reacted.

18.35 – Right, we’ve watched it back twice and will no doubt repeat that in the coming days. However, ob la dee ob la da. In the Olympic Stadium the decathletes are back on the field and they’ve brought some javelins with them.

18.40 – Along with more decathlon than you can shake said big stick at we’ll also bring you news of the Men’s triple jump final (beginning at 19.20) The women’s 800m semis (19.30) and the men’s final (20.00). After that we move onto the sprints: the womens’ 4×100 relay and the big one, Usain Bolt, Yohann Blake and Christophe Lamaitre in the 200 metre final.

19.28 – The first of the Women’s 800m semi-finals is about to take place.

Britain’s Lynsey Sharp is the clear home favourite in this race.

19.35 – Pamela Jelimo of Kenya comfortably wins the first 800m semi-final.

Russia’s Ekaterina Poistogova also qualifies after finishing second.

19.40 – The next 800m semi-final has one very familiar name in Caster Semenya of South Africa.

You may recall that Semenya was prevented from competing for a period and forced to undergo drug and gender tests.

19.52 – Mariya Savinova (Russia) has qualified in first place and Francine Niyonsaba (Burundi) finished second in the third 800m event.

20.16 – The celebrity tweets paying tribute to Katie Taylor have continued.

20.29 – I hope he’s joking…

20.33 – Ukraine have just won the second 4x100m relay.

Jamaica and Germany finished second and third respectively.

20.45 – Our expert in residence, Ailis McSweeney, has paid tribute to David Rudisha, in addition to previewing the upcoming 200m showdown. You can read the piece here.

20.54 – We’re finally almost ready for the 200m Final.

21.07 – So Usain Bolt becomes the first man to win Olympic Gold in the 200m twice.

21.28 – Alright that’s it for us for this evening. If you thought today was nerve-racking, there’s no fewer than three of our boxers on tomorrow, so be sure to take plenty of deep breaths and try to refrain from fingernail-chewing.

Until then, thank you and good night!