As the Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing regatta in Marseille enters its second week, two events with Irish interest will reach their concluding stages on Monday at the Roucas Blanc Marina.
Both men’s and women’s single-handed events in the ILCA 7 and ILCA 6 dinghies, formerly the Laser Standard and Radial classes have two final fleet races to go.
Although conditions freshened considerably over the weekend, the near-gale weather often associated with the famous Mistral wind never fully materialised though both Finn Lynch and Eve McMahon revelled in the physicality.
Although Sunday started off quite light with the added factor of a gentle but significant ebb tide, the men’s event took more than two hours to begin its first race. That saw Lynch finish 13th and just three places off Australian world champion Matt Wearn who had been enjoying a runaway lead of the series.
The second race of the day saw Wearn place 10th again while Lynch improved to 11th and was rewarded by reaching the top 10 overnight, a significant leap from 15th on Saturday.
With just two races remaining, Wearn remains the favourite to take gold and while Lynch might once have had his eye on the podium, he is carrying two weighty results from the start of the series.
He’ll need at least another solid day like Sunday to hold his top 10 fleet finishing position to compete in Tuesday’s medal race final.
Meanwhile, McMahon worked hard on Sunday to pull back up to 14th overall, having started the day in 17th. She remains some 22 points shy of the top 10 of her class but for an Olympic debutant, making the medal final at her first Olympics would be an achievement in itself.
But the Howth sailor is massively ambitious and points to the amount of time spent with senior athletes already.
“Anne-Marie [Rindom, Danish World Champion] has been my training partner and also a really good friend,” said McMahon. “So it’s nice to be able to have someone who’s so high in the fleet to train against and being such a good friend.
“I have a lot of respect for the girls and I’m good friends with a lot of them, but when you’re out in the water, you’re in your own boat and there’s no friends, but back on land, everyone’s kind of friendly and so far, so good.”
The two single-handed events conclude the sailing events with Irish interest for Paris 2024.
