ANNALISE MURPHY PULLED out two huge performances as she clinched a first place and second in Thursday’s two qualifying races in the Laser Radial class.
The top 10 after the ten qualifying contests will advance to the medal race. It means the 2016 Olympic silver medallist is still in contention heading into the final day of qualifiers on Friday.
Murphy endured a frustrating start when she finished 35th in her opening race but has steadily improved ever since. In Thursday’s race 7, she secured first and followed it up with another strong showing in race 8.
The Dubliner is now in 14th position overall.
14 points off a spot in the medal race - Annalise will need another big day tomorrow to make up the difference so hopefully the boost from today will carry her through! pic.twitter.com/BLynyxW8Nw
— Annalise Murphy (@Annalise_Murphy) July 29, 2021
“I guess I’m just delighted that I finally managed to put together a good day,” Murphy said afterwards.
“You start to doubt if you’re actually good enough to be doing this, or maybe you’ve just forgotten how to sail! So to be able to go out and win a race, and then to be second in the second race – yes, I was really happy.
“It was really fun having wind and waves. It wasn’t as windy as we thought it was going to be, but still nice wind, and really nice waves. We’ve had offshore, the wind coming off the land, so quite flat water, so today was the wind coming from the sea so really big waves which made it a lot of fun, particularly on the downwinds.
“I think I realised that I put so much pressure on myself to try and do well here. When I realised that I had kind of messed it up, I just had to go out and actually enjoy the sailing and enjoy the racing and take it one race at a time; try and do the simple stuff right and hopefully then, I would get some good races.”
She added: “I just have to go out tomorrow and enjoy the racing and sail well. I can’t really do anything fancy – I just have to keep on chipping away, and hopefully I can pull out two more good results.”
