The opening ceremony for the 2024 Paris Olympics is Friday night, and the PGA Tour’s own Shane Lowry will be one of the two athletes carrying the Irish flag for the proceedings. Joining him is Sarah Lavin, a 100-meter hurdler.
Golf returned to the Olympic Games in 2016 at the Rio Games. Not all golfers in the Olympics will take part in the opening ceremonies, but plenty of them embrace this experience.
To be a flag bearer is quite an honor.
“It’s a huge honor for me and my family. Anyone who knows me knows how patriotic I am, how much I love representing Ireland around the world and playing for my country,” Lowry wrote on Twitter.
Lowry won the Open Championship at Ireland’s iconic Royal Portrush in 2019. He is also a two-time Ryder Cup member for Europe.
“I always wear the Irish flag with pride,” Lowry said, per the Irish Independent. “It’s something that I’m not sure you’d even dream about as a kid because it’s so far out there. To get to do something like this is something that I will remember forever.”
Lavin and Lowry will participate in one of the most unique opening ceremonies. For the first time in the Games’ five-year history of opening proceedings, the Paris Games will not have them in a stadium. Instead, they will walk over three miles at the River Seine.
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Photo By Sam Barnes/Sportsfile via Getty Images
There will be 6,500 athletes in 85 boats sailing past Paris’ monuments like the Eiffel Tower, Louvre and the Notre Dame Cathedral.
With such a unique opening ceremony choice, all the athletes cannot participate, so it will see limited numbers from the countries with larger numbers of athletes.
For Lowry to get chosen is a massive honor. These Games mark his second as he also participated in the 2020/2021 Tokyo Games.
The Olympic men’s golf tournament begins Aug. 1-4 at Le Golf National in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
Savannah Leigh Richardson is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. For more golf coverage, follow us @_PlayingThrough on all major social platforms. You can also follow her on Twitter @SportsGirlSL and Instagram @golf_girl_sl.
