Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri and Ireland’s Mona McSharry and Daniel Wiffen are the latest swimmers announced to be flag bearers for their respective countries at the closing ceremony for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Paltrinieri won silver in the men’s 1500 freestyle and bronze in the men’s 800 freestyle last week in the pool. He also competed in the open water event this week, finishing 9th. He has now won five total Olympic medals after also winning gold in the men’s 1500 free in Rio and silver in Tokyo in the 800 free and bronze in the open water event in Tokyo as well. The 29 year old was in his 4th Olympics after also competing in the 2012 London Games.
McSharry and Wiffen made history for Ireland. Wiffen won gold in the men’s 800 freestyle, becoming the first man to ever win a medal in swimming for the country. He later went on to win bronze in the men’s 1500 free as well.
McSharry captured bronze in the women’s 100 breast, becoming the first medalist for Ireland since the 1996 Olympic Games. The two were also the second and third Irish swimming medalists ever.
So far, at least six swimmers have now been selected to be flag bearers at Sunday’s closing ceremony.
Swimmers Selected As Closing Ceremony Flag Bearers:
- Katie Ledecky (USA)
- Kaylee McKeown (Australia)
- Leon Marchand (France)
- Gregorio Paltrinieri (Italy)
- Mona McSharry (Ireland)
- Daniel Wiffen (Ireland)
The closing ceremony is scheduled to begin at 9 pm local time in Paris (3 pm EST) on August 11th. It is scheduled to end at midnight local time (6 pm EST).
Old news now but Unfortunately Whiffen was ill and in hospital so was not at the ceremony.
McIntosh, Milak, Mityukov (3Ms) will all be flag bearers of their countries.
and McIntosh
Wonder why Canada is not naming their flag bearers for the closing until Sunday morning?
I suspect to
a) get the results of yesterday’s competition (think Marco Arop would have been a flag carrier if he’d got gold)
b) confirm with Summer that she really is travelling back to Paris
Man that Arop performance was something else. If only he was a hundreth quicker. But 3rd and 4th fastest times ever in that race. It definitely exceeded all expectations.
Just luv that Canada won the men’s sprint relay on the track. The US always seems to be the fastest on paper but can almost never seem to get the relay baton around the track. They haven’t won that race since 2000.