PRESS RELEASE: Tuesday, July 10, 2007

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Eighth Competition Day: July 10

Disappointing day for 470 and 49er crews

Day 8 saw the resumption of the World Championships, with Irish competitors resuming action in Finn, 470, 49er, Laser Radial, Laser and RS:X.

Finn

Tim Goodbody and Aaron O'Grady resumed in the Gold fleet in 31st and 37th places. Races 6 and 7 took place today. Goodbody finished 5th and 24th, with O'Grady 27th and 10th. The excellent performance from Goodbody pushes him to 23rd overall. O'Grady lies 33 rd. Tomorrow, Wednesday, is decision day for the Finn class with a medal race for the top ten boats. Goodbody and O'Grady will race with the remainder of the Gold fleet with Olympic qualification the target.  With 19 nations qualifying for the Olympics at this competition, Goodbody currently is in the 17 th nation spot with that final race tomorrow.

470

The 470 class competed in one race today to determine Gold fleet. Gerard Owens and Phil Lawton finished 25th, a disappointing result which left them 49th overall and in silver fleet for the rest of the competition.  The Mac Colgáin brothers, Tuathal and Dualtach, from the ISA Academy, finished  35 th and lie in 109th spot.

49er

The 49er fleet has been most affected by the weather, playing catch up today, with some competitors in four races. The day started badly for Russell and Matt McGovern when their disqualification from their race on Sunday was confirmed. They had finished 2 nd in the race, completed in very difficult conditions. Despite an appeal they saw that excellent result struck off, which has a significant impact on their overall campaign. In their three races today races finished 12th , 9th and 4th ,   leaving them 35th overall and racing in the silver fleet for the rest of the week. 
 

Laser Radial

The Laser Radial programme was completed today. Claudine Murphy, racing in Gold fleet, finished 42 nd today to be 54th overall. In the Silver fleet Debbie Hanna, placed 5th (56th overall), Annalise Murphy 19 th ( 62nd overall), and  Ciara Peelo 2nd (63rd overall). In the Laser Radial Tatiana Drozdovskaya of Belarussia won gold, San Mutala of Finland won  silver and Petra Niemann of Germany bronze. The medal race this afternoon saw a dramatic turn around in the standings with the Belarussian and the Finn coming from outside the medal positions to push the German from gold into bronze and Elias of Mexico and Edelman of Isreal off the podium.

Laser

The Laser also completed today. The Irish representatives raced in silver fleet with Roger Craig finishing 78 th overall and James Espey 95th overall. The event was won by Tom Slingsby of Australia who has emerged as one of the stars of the Championships.   He won 4 of his 8 preliminary races and was comfortably in gold before today's medal race. Interestingly he will fight for selection to the 2008 Olympics against Michael Blackburn of Australia, who was the incumbent world champion, Sydney 2000 bronze medallist and was placed 21st at this event.

Andrew Murdoch of New Zealand won silver and Deniss Karpak of Estonia won bronze.

Star

As reported yesterday 'Prof' O'Connell and Ben  Cooke finished 14 th overall and 12th nation spot, one away from qualification for the 2008 Olympic Games. Bad weather curtailed the event, with 9 of the 11 scheduled races completed. However race rules dictate that it finish by yesterday evening and even a last minuet attempt to sail run the medal race at 8 pm was foiled by the weather. The last 4 remaining Olympic spots are available at the Star world championships in Miami in April 2008.

May Treacy and Anthony Shanks had a good day on Sunday, winning both Star races in the Silver fleet, leaving them top of the Silver fleet in 32 nd overall.

The medals in the Star class were as follows

Gold , Brazil, Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada,

Silver , France,  Xavier Rohart and Pascal Rambert,

Bronze , Great Britain, Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson .

RS:X

US based Richard White is representing Ireland in the RS X. The windsurfers are suffering more than most in the windy conditions and Richard, competing in the bronze fleet, did not complete races 6 and 7, leaving him in 111 th overall.

James O'Callaghan, ISA Performance Director: "We are very hopeful that we will get a Finn qualified for the Olympics tomorrow.  This has been an intense competition and, despite some setbacks and disappointments, we have seen some strong performances from this young and talented squad."