Irish Olympian reveals a big Olympics 2024 regret - and it is not do with medals
Jordan Conroy was doing 'captain' duties at the very times he was supposed to ring the Olympic Bell
The Ireland Sevens team had an unusual privilege at Paris 2024 in that, in action on the first day, they were among the first of the athletes allowed ring the Olympic Bell.
Kellie Harrington, Daniel Wiffen, Paul O'Dovovan, Fintan McGrath and Rhys McClenaghan were permitted to ring the Bell following gaining gold; the Ireland Sevens team rang it following match wins over South Africa, Japan and, latterly, United States.
Jordan Conroy however, in fulfilling his obligations as Sevens skipper, missed out on and it is something he regrets.
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"Every time you won a match you were to ring the ball, that was new to these Games, but I didn't get to ring it because I was doing interviews with RTE and everything else," he shrugs.
"There was about three or four of us always doing those interviews and every time the bell was rang we were talking to interviewers and it was just, like, 'we never got to do that did we?', a bit annoying yeh."
The ringing of the Olympic Bell, which had not been seen at an Olympiad before Paris, was originally supposed to have been only for gold medal winners.
But it is thought the lack of familiarity with the procedure saw the Rugby Sevens players waltz over and chime away on Day One following each match victory and so a precedent was set.
It will be interesting to see how LA 2028 treats the ringing of the Olympic Bell - or whether they will even keep the tradition.
While Conroy suggest if the campanology (bell-ringing, duh!) is restricted to the 'golden children' in LA 2028 don't be surprised to see the Ireland Sevens programme, male or female, involved
Ireland are an improving Sevens nation and what's coming behind in both the current men's and women's programmes is boosting their stock.
For instance Conroy suggests 25 year-old Zac Ward - a son of former Ireland flanker Andy Ward - is a potential superstar of the short-sided game.
"Zac is one of the youngsters that has been playing exceptionally well the whole year and even then on the Olympic stage he has been amazing in very match he played, he gave it his all.
"Even when he came on he always did something, break the line or even score more tries than me - that just goes to show what a great player he is!
"For me personally, from all the youngsters we had in Paris it was Zac Ward that stood out, he has been amazing."
Moreover, suggests Conroy, Ireland's Women's Sevens team could be gold medal contenders in Los Angeles.
"I watched their quarter-final and obviously that was a disappointing end, the same fate as ours, getting beaten but I think with it being their first Olympics it was always a new experience and you really don't know what way to approach it with it being such a big stage.
"When I compare it to our Olympics, you just really want to play well and then you get disappointed if you don't play well.
"But I think with it being their first Olympics they did extremely well getting into the top eight.
"We finished 10th in our first Olympics in Tokyo so they finished better than us - they couldn't really have asked for a better first Olympics experience."
"I think they will learn from that, they will take all of these learnings and they will implement that in the next few years to come, just like we did."
The men's team learned a harsh lesson in Tokyo and it galvanised thought and effort; the womens team will have learned a hard lesson in Paris and it should do likewise.
"I expected a lot of things from Tokyo but at the end of the day we just ran out of gas so taking the learning from Tokyo and bringing it into Paris was important.
"Hopefully with some of the girls who were in Paris staying on for LA, they can take those learnings from Paris and, you know, have them there in LA.
"From where they are starting with that knowledge and experience, they could get to a semi-final or even a gold medal."
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