Irish debutante Eve McMahon took her dream of participating in an Olympic medal race a step closer by finishing seventh in Monday's single race nine in the Women's dinghy in the Bay of Marseille.
The on-form McMahon, who moved up from 17th to 14th on Sunday, was aiming for a top ten finish, but the cancellation of the final race ten of the Opening Series on Monday evening left her three places short and no opportunity to improve ahead of tomorrow's medal race final.
McMahon, the reigning Under 21 World Champion, tied on 108 points with British sailor Hannah Snellgrove (who won two individual races) in 13th place. It's a result by the Howth rookie – just nine points off tenth overall – that has been widely praised.
Irish ILCA Chairman Sean Craig was one of the first to congratulate McMahon on the overall position: "Eve's coming so close to MR is an awesome result for a rookie. Her trajectory for LA2028 is just perfect, plus we’ve just had two girls in the top 10 at Youth Europeans and one just outside the top 20. It all represents female depth in the class in Ireland as we’ve never seen before", he told Afloat.
"My first Olympics, done and dusted, it's crazy how quickly it's flown by," said McMahon after racing ended. "I'm a little bit disappointed not to get the second race in today, I raced my heart out and I was really climbing up, making the points a lot smaller to the gap to the medal race."
Over the course of the nine races sailed in the fleet series, McMahon scored three top ten results in the 43-boat fleet. But for two results in the 20's, she might easily have been tonight preparing for tomorrow's medal race final.
"Looking back on the results, I've beaten the Silver medallist from Tokyo and the current European champion so I'm really happy," she said. "But it's a little bit heart-breaking. I was in this position last year at the test event, and I missed the medal race by a point. But, my luck has to come sometime and hopefully that's for the LA cycle."
Marit Bouwmeester is on course to win gold in the Women’s Dinghy Photo: Sander van der Borch
Meanwhile, Marit Bouwmeester is on course to win gold in the Women’s Dinghy which means tomorrow she will become the most successful female sailor at an Olympic Games.
After taking bronze in the Laser Radial in Tokyo, the Dutch superstar returned to the top of the pecking order with a dominant display in Marseille to all but secure gold, after achieving the same feat in Rio.
Bouwmeester will become a four-time Olympic medallist tomorrow and looked the part throughout, finishing in the top five on seven different occasions. She did have her weakest finish in race nine, placing 20th, but that mattered very little as the final race of the Opening Series was abandoned due to a lack of wind, confirming that Bouwmeester could not be overtaken at the top of the rankings.
Anne-Marie Rindom, the gold medallist in Tokyo, was unable to defend her crown, but still put in a fine showing on the water. She has all but secured the silver medal after finishing fourth in the first and only race of the day. Rindom also won bronze in Rio, meaning tomorrow she will complete the Olympic medal set.
Bronze is still up for grabs heading into the Medal Race tomorrow, but at the moment Norway’s Line Flem Hoest is third, five points ahead of Switzerland’s Maud Jayet who struggled on the water today.
Bouwmeester said: “What a tough day, we were so close to the island. It was a crazy day. I think I had a really tough Worlds and I struggled to find balance with the home situation and sailing. I’ve been building since then.
“I’ve been sailing in very slow boats so I think that’s why my sailing looked less before. I knew that hopefully I could get a bit more pace here, so I was actually hoping for this to happen.
“I’m just going to enjoy this one, I’m going to go back to my family and rest. I must say a big thank you to my family for supporting me.”
Rindom said: “I felt like I underperformed a little bit this week. With that in mind I still secured a silver medal. I would have liked to have battled it out with Marit tomorrow, but it’s ok. She had a really good week and hats off, she definitely did the job that needed to be done.”
“It’s really difficult to perform at an Olympic Games and really hard to perform in these conditions. I had an injury for the last three months and that sent me off a little bit. I don’t think I lived up to my level until today, but that’s sport.
“I knew that it could go either way so I had to keep fighting and believing in myself.”
Results are here
