Sam and Jessica Buckley from Ratoath with Cian O'Connor and his bronze medal.

Ratoath residents gave Olympic bronze medallist Cian O'Connor and modern pentathlon star Natalya Coyle a hero's welcome on Sunday evening as a huge crowd gathered in the village to celebrate their London 2012 campaigns.

Between them, Cian and Natalya had come up against the world's toughest competition, taken on five disciplines in one day, burst onto the Olympic stage with a last-minute qualification and taken a place on the podium, watched every step of the way by an entire nation.

It was this homecoming, however, that seemed to really strike a chord with the athletes. A beaming Cian O'Connor was clearly moved to receive such a warm response from the crowd in his home town and looked back on what he termed an "amazing year".

He told compere Brendan McArdle of the support he had received from family, friends and staff, how thrilled he was to have married the woman of his dreams, and how he believes fate played a hand in ensuring he had an opportunity to return to the Olympics to win a medal.

To read the full story see this week's Meath Chronicle.