Irish sailors Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove qualify for Olympics

Ireland’s Robert Dickson with Sean Waddilove emerged as the victorious nation in the hunt for Olympic qualification at the 49er European Championship after light winds once again beset the racing ground off Vilamoura, Portugal.

Despite strong sunshine that hinted at sea breeze conditions, the racing schedule for the day was gradually whittled back until the standings results decided the competition.

That left the Irish pair in their hard-won eighth place overall and, critically three points ahead of Italy’s Simone Ferrarse and Leonardo Chiste in ninth place.

The result neatly bookends as season of recovery for the Dublin crew as they both had battled illness for several months back in the spring.

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That put them behind and recovery was only just in time for the combined Sailing World Championships in The Hague where the first 10 nation places for Paris 2024 were decided.

While Dickson and Waddilove sailed well with several notable results, going into the final day of that event saw them miss qualification by a single place when they incurred a second-race disqualification for early starting.

Typically, over a long series, a crew might recover from one such penalty but two was just too much.

However, it was just the wake-up call they needed and they have concentrated on their starting technique as well as light winds sailing over the past three months in their training plan: both tasks paid dividends over the past six days with no starting errors and good recovery in the highly tricky conditions that the Algarve served up.

“For anyone who hasn’t qualified, to wait until April which is the next shot is a long, long way away,” said Matt McGovern, Irish Sailing’s 49er coach after racing ended. “It would really have affected our preparations for the Olympics so good to get in done now.”

While a national selection trials is still likely, training will now switch to intensive preparation in Marseille, the Olympic Sailing regatta venue where the Irish Sailing Foundation has an established base.

Their next competitive event will be in Lanzarote in February where Dickson and Waddilove won bronze and a place at Tokyo 2020 three years ago in the midst of the Covid pandemic restrictions.

“We won’t get away with ourselves and we’ll look at all our processes and everything that we can work on,” said McGovern who pointed to their work over the last three months.

“This has been the best leap forward in terms of progress that they’ve made in years.”

For Waddilove, while the months since recovering from illness were hard, the upside was that two weak areas were highlighted and they had an opportunity to work on solutions to address them.

“Particularly for starting, to see that paying off is fantastic,” he said.

Ireland now has two events qualified for Paris 2024 as Carlow’s Finn Lynch delivered the men’s single-handed event at The Hague.

In January, there is the prospect of a third event when Howth’s Eve McMahon goes into action at the ILCA6 World Championships in Argentina, which is a qualifier for the Women’s single-handed event.

Recently crowned the under-21 world champion in her event, achieving qualification for Ireland while still a relatively young senior level sailor would confirm her as one of the rising stars not just of Irish sailing but also on the world stage.

Missing from the slate for Paris will be a Women’s Skiff team as Ireland has had a viable 49erFX crew since Andrea Brewster and Saskia Tidey for the Rio 2016 Olympics.

However, that situation could be about to change with a pipeline of strong results coming in from skiff sailors in the Academy and Youth programmes looking towards Los Angeles 2028.