Irish In Action On Day One: Ireland's Olympics Kick Off With Immediate Shot At Medals

Aside from the football which kicked off before the official start of the 31st Olympiad, the Games kicks off in earnest in Rio today.

With that, there are a number of Irish athletes in action, and quite a few medals to be handed out already.

Going in chronological order, men's rowing and women's shooting kick off the action early in the Brazilian morning - but the first athletes from Team Ireland won't be in action until 1.30 Irish time.

RTE will be live at the Olympics from 1pm on RTE Two, until 3.45 am.

Irish In Action - Day One (All times listed are Irish times):

Men's Cycling: Dan Martin & Nicholas Roche - 1.30pm

The action kicks off with Dan Martin and Nicholas Roche riding in the road race early. The 241.5 km race represents a decent chance at a medal, with Martin coming off a top ten finish at the Tour de France. Martin is a fantastic one-day specialist, and with the course not suited to sprinters - it should suit Martin really well. We rated Martin as our sixth best chance of a medal.

Women's Single Sculls: (Heats) Sanita Puspure - 1.50pm

Sanita Puspure is coming of a third place at the European Championships, and placed fourth in the World Championships in 2014. She goes in the third heat of the day, and will be targeting a semi-final place at minimum. She needs a top three finish in the heats to qualify for Tuesday's quarterfinals, or else she'll go into tomorrow's repechage stage, where she'll have another chance to get into the quarter-finals.

Equestrian: Clare Abbott, Jonty Evans, Mark Kyle, Padraig McCarthy, and Judy Reynolds - 2pm

Both the team and the individual equestrian gets underway at 2pm. Judy Reynolds is in the individual dressage, and is aiming for at a place in the final; while the team of Abbot, Evans, Kyle, and McCarthy will hope for a top six finish to qualify for the final 18.

Artistic Gymnastics - Kieran Behan 2.30pm

Behan returns for his second Olympics, which is remarkable considering that an accident in his youth lead to doctors telling him that he'd never walk again. He'll be in action from 2.30 working on the horizontal and parrallel bars, the vault, the floor, the rings, and pommel horse, and the individual all-round. He's most favoured to the floor.

Men's Hockey: Ireland Team - 3pm

Ireland's first field team in the Olympics since 1948, and the first time the men's hockey team has been at the Olympics since 1908. That drought will end at 3pm in their first match with India. Ireland are in group B with India, Netherlands, Germany, Canada, and Argentina - with the top four qualifying for the quarter-finals. Ireland's second game is against the Netherlands on Sunday.

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India are the fifth ranked team in the world, Netherlands second, Germans third, Argentina seventh. Canada are the only team in the group that are ranked lower than the 12th place Irish, and they are 15th.