Ireland's Lynch Reaches Top Ten with One Day to Olympic Medal Race in Marseille
As the Men's one-person dinghy event reaches its fleet series climax, Ireland's Finn Lynch (National Yacht Club) had another solid day off Marseille (Sunday 4 August) and has moved from 15th place to 10th in his 43-strong event overnight.
Just two races remain in the fleet series that will determine the top ten sailors who will contest Tuesday's medal race final.
Lynch had a consistent day with a 13th in the first race. In the second race, he was one of 30 boats rounding the top mark within a few seconds and was forced into hitting the mark to avoid a collision. He took penalty turns and was still able to recover ground to finish a respectable 11th.
"It's light winds again tomorrow, so the last light wind day of this regatta I didn't perform very well," admitted Lynch. "We know what I want to improve there - I need to be a bit more punchy on the starts, I was too far off the line so I'll be happy if I can do that."
"I'm an all-round sailor - I really could do well in strong or light winds but I just wasn't able to get off the start line in the light winds on the first light winds day of this regatta."
While the regatta is being dominated by Australian World Champion Matthew Wearn, the podium is by no means certain though Lynch appeared to rule himself out of medal stakes.
"I just want to sail well and finish the Olympics with my best day, hopefully tomorrow - that's my goal," he said. "The results don't look too bad but my sailing wasn't super good so hopefully I can improve tomorrow."
Meanwhile, in the women's one-person dinghy, Eve McMahon (Howth Yacht Club) has recovered ground to 14th overall and has a 22-point gap to close to the top ten sailors.
Any result in the top 20 boats for a first-time Olympian would be an outstanding achievement but the World Under 21 World Champion is hugely ambitious.
"I really want to make the medal race, I've always been on the edge of it the past season," McMahon said after racing ended. "Medal race is top ten and I've always been 11th 12th 13th 14th the whole season, I'm knocking at the door of it would be amazing to make it just to be in the atmosphere and to race against them in the medal race."
McMahon has been analysing her performance in recent days and made improvement that led to her sixth and 15th places for the penultimate day.
"I think sometimes I was tacking a little bit too much and getting a bit lost in the (wind) shifts, whereas today, I did a lot less tacks on the upwind and just kind of trusted myself to go to one side and it really paid off today."
Two further races are scheduled in both the men's and women's event on Monday that will conclude the fleet series in each event.