IRISH IN ACTION:"BY THREE methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest." Confucius said a lot of wise things in his time, but there were no words of consolation for Derek Burnett after his bitterly disappointing experience in yesterday's trap shooting qualification. It wasn't just that he failed to make the final, but that he didn't even come close - and Burnett was understandably holding back the tears as he tried to reason with his performance.
"Devastated," he said, and then the tears started. "It's really disappointing not to qualify. I have no real excuses. I never got a feel of the place. It just kept biting me one round after the next.
"The idea today was to try and start strong. Everything was going along nicely. Then I got a broken target. I had to repeat it and I missed it and it went a little bit pear-shaped from there.
"Conditions wouldn't be ideal. You know, I can't really blame conditions because I've been in them before. It's more the range. I never got comfortable at it and I just couldn't make up the ground from yesterday. You spend so long trying to qualify and it's so difficult to get here so it's totally devastating."
After Saturday's opening session, Burnett came out yesterday needing 49 out of 50 points from his two rounds, and instead, missed three of his first nine shots, and ended with a five-round total of 110 clays out of 125, to finish 29th of 35. Later, the gold medal went to David Kostelecky of the Czech Republic.
There were more mixed emotions for Chloe Magee after her second-round defeat in the badminton singles. She came from one set down to beat Kati Tolmoff of Estonia on Saturday, then lost to Jaeyoun Jun of Korea yesterday evening in two sets, 12-21, 14-21.
"This girl is one of the best in the game," said Magee, "and all I wanted to do was go out there and play my best badminton and I did that in parts but I just wasn't consistent enough. I played a good game but just not long enough."
No Irish competitors in Beijing looked more drained and exhausted after their event than Nicolas Roche and Philip Deignan, who completed Saturday's 150.2-mile cycling road in oppressive heat, which became all the more intense as riders completed several climbs around the Great Wall. Roche had attempted three brave breakaways and ended up 64th - in a group just over 10 minutes behind Spain's gold medallist Samuel Sanchez. "It was very, very hard," said Roche."I went off twice on the first lap around, and then with three laps to go again. I was in the right position each time and I said I'll try it, you'd never know they could let you go. But that did not happen."
Deignan finished another five minutes back in 81st.
The men's heavyweight rowers also looked fairly exhausted on Saturday, but for good reason, having qualified for Wednesday's semi-finals with an excellent third place behind Germany and race winners Australia.
The crew of Cormac Folan, Seán Casey, Jonno Devlin and Seán O'Neill finished particularly strongly in a time of six minutes, 02.85 seconds, leaving the fast-fading French to go through to the repechage. They were the seventh fastest time of the nine boats that qualified directly.
