With only two races left to sail at the Laser World Championships and Olympic Qualifier in Japan, top Irish contender Finn Lynch needs to move up 16 places overall in order to secure the last of the five Olympic berths up for grabs.
There's no doubt he'll rue some inconsistent sailing this past week that has put him in the same position as 2018 when, with some promising performances, he missed the standard then by 20 points and finished 31st place overall.
This week Guatemala's Maegli Juan Ignacio in 21st place will take the final qualification place as things currently stand unless Lynch, an individual race winner at the Japanese championships, can address the existing 40-point deficit and leapfrog four other unqualified countries between him and Juan Ignacio. Results are here
Tomorrow will be a big ask for the Carlow sailor but he can still do it, for two reasons.
Firstly, he has an uncanny, ruthless ability to finish regattas strongly (he finished ninth in the last race in the 2018 Worlds) and that is perhaps the greatest skill of all for an elite racer.
Secondly, this Gold Fleet in the Laser Worlds is of a ridiculously high standard. What this means in practice is that the overall results can flip dramatically on a single day, especially on a high-pressure final day! World Champions and Olympic medalists are winning races and then coming in the 40s in the next race, for example, the current World Champion Kontides Pavlos is 19th overall.
The National Yacht Club man probably needs no more than about 20 points over the two races to do it, but if anybody in Ireland can, Lynch can!
The penultimate day on Monday saw Lynch (Bennekerry, Co. Carlow) end in 37th overall (down four places from 33rd) as he was unable to repeat the race-winning performance he showed on Sunday.
Debutante Ewan McMahon
On his first-ever appearance at a senior-level world championship Ewan McMahon (Howth, Co. Dublin) had two back of fleet results that showed him pushing hard for experience including a 'Black flag' disqualification for early starting that masked an excellent top five position early in the race.
“I just want to see the fighting spirit tomorrow," commented Vasilij Zbogar, Irish Sailing's head Laser coach.
The series concludes in Sakaiminato on Tuesday before a break for a week when the women's Laser Radial World Championship begins with Aoife Hopkins (Howth, Co. Dublin) and Aisling Keller (Tipperary) both aiming to secure a place for Ireland at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.