The glamour. Out here everything is fine. Annalise Murphy is on the water, stretching her long frame out from the boat parallel with the sea. Up and down she goes. There she is. Now she’s gone.
On shore is Favela-chic Rio. Ordered rubbish heaps of bare block shanty towns spilling down the hillsides like glaciers sweeping, it seems, almost as far as the beach at Praia de Flamengo.
Lines of spectators with binoculars peer out from the curved strip of sand at the women’s laser radial fleet, a line forming beside the five giant Olympic rings, where people form an orderly queue to have their picture taken.
Out here everything is better than good. The rain has stopped. But the waiting goes on sucking the life out of the competitors. Schooled on Wimbledon delays this is an easy procession of times 1.05pm start, 1.45pm start, 2.15pm start, 2.50pm the times come and go and all the while the sailors wait.
Murphy has been sitting out in the bay for hours. Earlier in the morning she set her boat in the water at the Marina da Gloria, knowing it would be a one hour toe to the racing site. She tied up to the launch and off she went, thinking both races would be complete by 3.00pm.
There she sat in the shadow of Sugar Loaf Mountain bobbing around with the rest of the world’s best hoping the sea sickness that had gripped her earlier in the week would not return, the race delay, due to a combination of light winds, six to 10 knots and large waves.
Guanabara Bay is another world. Like the city the water is beautiful but can be unhealthy and dangerous. This week Evi van Acker, a Belgian rival of Murphy who won the bronze medal at London 2012, watched as her results deteriorated day by day.
Ailing with biting stomach problems as a result of swallowing the polluted water, she has fallen away. Today after heavy rains over the past two days have washed everything down from the city, the water is likely a richer soup.
But Murphy has been here many times and whether it is a cast iron stomach or a reflex action to keep her mouth closed at the right times, she’s hanging tough.
This had been expected to be a test in her ability in light winds after a week of heavy blows and on Thursday water so brutally rough, the boats were in danger of being broken.
Even yesterday in the relative calm the quaint announcement at the marina warned the media of differing challenges out on the launch.
“Please be aware there are big waves out in the bay today. And for Brazilians it is quite cold.”
When racing began it almost caught the Dun Laoghaire sailor, who sat on top of the fleet at the beginning of the day, unawares. They took off. She loitered and lingered at the very back, the tricolour on her sail separate from the crash of boats tearing away from the starting line in the first race.
It was an ominous sight and although Murphy found her way back into the cut and thrust of the fleet, the water she had given away in race seven of 10 before the medal event kicks in on Monday, was not to be regained.
Her 18th place in race one yesterday will hopefully be her discarded run. But her 12th in the second race kept a foor on the podium and she remains in third place overall. It is still sweet.
“Very happy with that on a really, really difficult day,” said Irish Sailing performance Director James O’ Callaghan. “We saw some high scores from her competitors as well. I think it’s a really good reflection of the hard work she has put in. Those are the sort of conditions that have really challenged her in the past.
“I’m very proud of her standing here today of that turn around. She’s kept herself in contention so I’m happy with her days work.”
It was that sort of day, the boats returning back to the marina just as dusk was setting in over the city, Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern taking second to New Zealand and in fifth place overall.
All is still to play for.
