A gold & bronze for Irish Olympic sailors at Games venue in Weymouth

Weymouth was awash with worldclass Olympic sailors over the last week for Skandia Sail for Gold, the last major regatta before the games start in just under two months. In this much anticipated event at the Olympic venue all eyes were firmly focused on the final scoreboard after Saturday's (09 July) medal race and the Irish Olympic sailors featured strongly on the scoreboard by winning gold in the Star class, bronze in the Radial class and a personal best of 7th in the 49er.

Commenting on the team's performance ISA Performance Director James O'Callaghan stated 'winning medals at the stage of preparation for the Games gives a huge confidence boost to the sailors. However all sailors will be reviewing their performances after this key event and the competition will be even tougher come August.'

Weather played havoc with the race schedule earlier in the week with strong gusting winds but the sun finally came out and the wind moderated to a perfect 15 knots for the opening medal races, building to a fresh 20-22 knots for the final medals. The action took place on two courses, one inside the harbour and the other under the Olympic spectator site on the Nothe.

The first of the Irish campaigns to sail was 22 year old Annalise Murphy from the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire in the Laser Radial class. Annalise led the race from the line and won comfortably. She was fifth going in to the double point medal race and needed to win the medal race to be in contention. Great Britain's Alison Young took Gold and Finland's Sari Multala took silver. None of the fleet favourites Lijia Xu, Marit Bouwmeester or Evi Van Acker featured on the podium.

Commenting after her bronze medal win Providence Resources Irish Olympic sailor stated ' I went out to win the medal race and covered everyone else. It is brilliant to have won this medal as it shows I have form in Weymouth'

By now the wind was blowing 19 knots with gusts of 23 and it the medal race was next up for the Irish 49er duo Ryan Seaton & Matt McGovern from Northern Ireland. Finishing 10th at the World Championships in Perth in December 2011 gave this pairing the belief that they could compete amongst the top nations. While the 2012 season has not been all plain sailing their personal best of finishing 7th overall in Weymouth comes at a great time in the season.

After the race 49er helm Ryan Seaton stated 'We went out this week to turn a few head and we have achieved that. We don't have to change much for the Games, we are happy with our boat speed. So after a break we are looking forward to getting back to Weymouth for some more training in advance of the Games.'

On the harbour course the heavyweights in the Star class were lining up for their medal race start. The Irish Star team of Peter O'Leary and David Burrows are a well experienced team with Burrows making an appearance at his fourth Games and Peter at his second. They went in to the medal race in third position after reigning Olympic champions Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson (Great Britain) had a slim one-point lead over their main rivals, four-time Olympic medallist Robert Scheidt and his sailing partner Bruno Prada (Brazil).

Off the start line, the leading pair headed left, but it was the right that paid. A port and starboard incident up the first beat meant the Brazilian duo had to do penalty turns, and it demoted them to the back of the fleet.

O'Leary & Burrows finished the race in third place ahead of their main competitors and enough to give them gold.

Commenting on their performance Star helm Peter O'Leary stated 'We got in to the clear early and were consistent. It was great that we posted a good result in the final regatta before the Olympics. We have based ourselves in Weymouth for some time which has given us a chance to familiarize ourselves with the venue'

On Friday the event finished for the other two Irish Olympic campaigns with Ger Owens & Scott Flanigan in the 470 class finishing in 1st place in the Silver Fleet while James Espey finished 4th in the Laser Silver Fleet. Providence Resources Irish Paralympians John Twomey, Ian Costello and Anthony Hegarty in the Sonar class finished 12th overall.

Commenting overall on the team's performance at Skandia Sail for Gold ISA High Performance Director James O'Callaghan stated 'The results that Irish sailing is getting across all classes demonstrates that we have good systems and structures in place. This foundation would not have been possible to build without the programme support from the Irish Sports Council and now with Providence Resources coming on board we are able to enhance the programme further.'