With one year to go before the London 2012 Olympics, organisers at the sailing venue in Weymouth and Portland completed their full test regatta at the weekend with single team representatives invited from each nation, mirroring the actual Games format.
Ireland’s two leading contenders in the medal-hunt fared well just missing podium places in Saturday’s final.
Peter O’Leary and David Burrows in the Star keelboat had been in the silver position going into the final but were disappointed to end fourth overall when Brazillian master Robert Scheidt took gold.
In the Laser Radial, Marit Boumeester from the Netherlands had already won gold before going into the medal race while a fourth place in the final for Ireland’s Annalise Murphy left her sixth overall for the ten race series.
The star and Laser radial performances in particular were impressive. OCI Stephen Martin was in Weymouth at the end of the London 2012 Chef de Mission Seminar to congratulate Performance Director James O’Callaghan on the teams performance after the Star class medal race. Both O’Callaghan and Martin were able to recce the Sailing venue and Athlete village during the course of the event in preparation for next year and discussed logisical issues with LOCOG sports event staff.
Martin said that “many nations have been impressed with the peformances of Irish sailors in the past few test events in Weymouth”
