“On that basis,” Des Cahill said to RTE’s athletics expert David Matthews on Thursday’s Morning Ireland as they discussed Rashidat Adeleke’s semi-final performance the previous night, “are you urging caution?” The expert, as experts often do, was indeed urging caution and we tried to get a grip of ourselves at his command. By this stage, Ireland was 12th in the medal table and this was probably a necessary intervention. This was where we were as a country. Urging caution on a giddy nation before a sprinter’s — an Irish sprinter’s — appearance in an Olympics final, something which had never…

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