Day 5: Thursday 29 July
Mixed Fortunes for Irish Sailors at Tokyo 2020 today
The Team Ireland Men's 49er skiff of Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove are lying in thirteenth place at the Olympic Regatta in Enoshima, while Annalise Murphy is sitting in 14th place.
In the Women’s Laser Radial, Annalise Murphy won race seven of her series and followed this with an epic match-race with the Gold medal favourite and her training-partner Anne-Marie Rindom of Denmark.
The Men’s 49ers had posted a second and a sixth for the day, coming on top of a race win on Tuesday, which initially moved them into seventh position. However, when the fleet of 19 49ers arrived ashore, they were routinely spot-checked by the official equipment measurers. In two cases, Ireland and Brazil, it was found that the trapeze harnesses used by the sailors to hang from wires to balance the boat were slightly in excess of the permitted weight.
This amount was 90 grams for the Irish equipment. The measurers then lodged a protest as the official complaint procedure in sailing. which was heard by the International Jury who deliberated for almost two hours.
The decision was that both Ireland and Brazil were disqualified from both of today's races.
Dickson and Waddilove drop to 13th place overall leaving six races to recover to a place in Monday's medal race final.
"Although Rob and Sean are hugely disappointed by this ruling, we need to refocus and do our best in the remaining races," said James O'Callaghan, Performance Director with Irish Sailing. "The issue still needs to be addressed by the class how equipment as widely used by the whole fleet could still be found to be slightly overweight at the Olympic Games."
The harness includes a removable back support that even when included meets the target weight of two kilos. The Irish crew had measured their harnesses on three separate occasions prior to departure for Tokyo and each time were found to be compliant.
Meanwhile, Annalise Murphy still has two races on Friday to see if she can reach Sunday's medal race final in the women's single-handed event. Thrilled with her return to form even at this late stage of the regatta, she also paid tribute to Ireland's rowers for the Gold and Bronze medals over the past 24 hours.
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Day 4 - 49er Fleets Find Form
Day 3 - Dream Debut Win
Day 2 - Form Reset Needed
Day 1 - Challenging Light Weather at Enoshima