McMahon Proudly Ends First Olympic Sailing Regatta in Marseille
Ireland's Eve McMahon (Howth Yacht Club) has ended her first Olympic Games with a strong showing today that propelled her within touching distance of Tuesday's medal race final. The Dublin sailor scored a seventh place, moving her from 14th to 13th and just nine points off the top ten in the women's one-person dinghy.
As reigning Under 21 World Champion, McMahon had set herself a tough personal goal of making the medal final though any first time Olympic appearance would usually rate a top 20 place as being as good performance.
"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 heartbreaking, and I was in this position this time 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."
Meanwhile, Ireland's Finn Lynch (National Yacht Club) will be competing in his medal final for the men's one-person dinghy despite not having any races sailed. His event shared the same racecourse as McMahon's and was similarly beset by light wind conditions.
And also similar to McMahon, the Carlow sailor, who is a veteran of the Rio 2016 games, is also carrying two results in the 20's from his event. His scoreline means the best outcome he can hope for in the medal final is an eighth place.
"It was a long day on the water; unfortunately, we didn't get any racing so I'm a little bit sad that I couldn't fight one more day and try it a bit higher but (I'm) into the medal race so hopefully I end the regatta with my best race," said Lynch. "It would be great to end the regatta with a good race."
As with Monday, Tuesday also features light winds in the forecast so reserve days are also scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday to complete the event.