"An unfortunate time" and "contractual obligations" have been cited as the reasons why Israel Olatunde's record-breaking race was not shown on either RTE 1 or 2 on Tuesday night.
The Dundalk native recorded a new national record of 10.17 seconds in finishing sixth in the 100m final at the European Athletics Championships. The time was one hundredth of a second faster than the mark set by Paul Hession 15 years ago.
But the race was shown on RTE News channel rather than on either of their two main stations. It was also streamed live on the RTE Player.
READ MORE: Israel Olatunde becomes Ireland's fastest ever man with stunning 100m final performance
Responding to a tweet asking why the race was not shown on RTE 1 or 2, Michael Flanagan, who works as a TV Broadcast Co-ordinator with RTE, said: "Couldn’t show it on either. It just fell at an unfortunate time."
He added: "Also contractual obligations unfortunately. Would much prefer to be showing it. We’ve been broadcasting 10 plus hours of the championship each day. This fell at the time we couldn’t show it on RTÉ 1 &2."
Italian gold medal winner Marcell Jacob won the final with a 9.95 time while British athlete's Zharnel Hughe and Jeremiah Azu finished second and third.
And Olatunde was only .04 of a second off a medal in what was a hugely encouraging performance for Irish athletics.
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