Irish in the Olympics Day 4: Zagunis falls short in medal bid

In the fourth day of competition featuring Notre Dame athletes at the Rio Olympics, gold medalist Mariel Zagunis fell short in her bid to return to the podium.

Zagunis was the only Irish athlete competing Monday with a chance at a medal, but the former sabre champion only made it to the round of 16 before falling in a narrow 15-12 loss to a Russian athlete. Zagunis was attempting to tie track and field star Alex Wilson as the most decorated Notre Dame athlete in Olympic history with four medals.

Still, Zagunis will get a chance to reach that mark again when she takes part in the women’s sabre team competition. The U.S. is ranked fourth in the world in that weapon.

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Although Zagunis was the only Irish athlete in competition for a medal on Monday, many other ND alums were in action as well.

Kicking off her Rio Games, former Irish All-American rower Amanda Polk competed in the preliminaries of the women’s eight. The U.S. entered the race heavily favored to capture gold, and the crew left no doubts in their heat, winning by eight seconds.

In fact, the U.S. finished qualifying three seconds faster than any other competitor. With the team final scheduled for Saturday, Polk could be the first Irish medalist of these Olympics.

In women’s basketball, Natalie Achonwa played sparingly for Team Canada, as they rallied past Serbia to move to 2-0 in group play.

In a little under eight minutes, Achonwa scored one point, grabbed two offensive rebounds and blocked a shot, almost all of which came in the fourth quarter.

With the win, Canada is now tied with the USA atop its group with three more games left to play.

In men’s basketball, Irish alum and U.S. assistant coach Monty Williams cruised to a massive 113-69 victory over Venezuela, which was expected.

But perhaps the biggest news involving Williams came during the Americans’ off day, when All-Stars Klay Thompson and Jimmy Butler played some football, with Williams acting as QB. No word yet from Brian Kelly on how this will impact Notre Dame’s quarterback competition.

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And lastly, Angie Akers, a former Notre Dame volleyball great who is now an assistant beach volleyball coach for the women of the Netherlands, had a team in competition Monday, who rolled to their second straight 2-0 victory, putting themselves and Akers in prime position to advance out of group play.