TWO OF IRELAND’S Olympic hopefuls, Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern, will be going for gold at the ISAF World Sailing Championships in Perth tomorrow.
The pair wrapped up qualification for London 2012 in the 49er class earlier this week but needed to finish in the top 10 boats overall to guarantee a spot in tomorrow’s medal race.
After starting the day in 12th place, Seaton and McGovern hauled themselves into contention by finishing 15th and 10th in the day’s opening two races.
That strong start bumped them up to 10th place overall and into medal race contention, and they capitalised by finishing the day’s final race in sixth.
James O’Callaghan, ISA Performance Director, paid tribute to the pair who came in eighth place overall, well inside tomorrow’s medal race cut-off.
“This is a fantastic achievement for Matt & Ryan and a personal best,” O’Callaghan said.
“Their hard work and training has paid off and they deserve to be in the medal race tomorrow. It will be an interesting race and the pressure will be on.”
However, there was disappointment for another of Ireland’s Olympic hopefuls in Perth today.
Disqualification in the day’s second race denied James Espey in the laser class, dropping him back to 38th nation overall with only the top 35 countries guaranteed to progress to next summer’s games. Espey will now have to wait until next May’s Laser World Championships in Germany where he will have his second and final bite at the cherry.
“It is unfortunate that James was black flagged today dashing his hopes of early qualification. Hopefully he will make it in May,” O’Callaghan said afterwards.
But, he added: “Overall the Irish Team has performed incredibly well at this event and exceeded our objectives by qualifying three classes in the Olympics and two of those classes making the medal races. Many of our athletes have shown their personal bests in Perth.”
