SAILING ISA ALL-IRELAND CHAMPIONSHIPS:LAST WEEKEND'S annual showcase of Irish sailing classes ended with as improbable an outcome as might be expected - save for the fact the three top finalists all came from the same household. When it comes to family names and sailing, the O'Learys of Cork are by now synonymous with the sport.
Although delayed by strong winds on Sunday, the top eight boats for the final races sailed out from Howth and the ISA All-Ireland Sailing Championship, sponsored by Euro Car Parks, had the added expectation of a tussle for the silver salver that listed many of the best sailors the country has produced over the last six decades.
That tussle had already been heralded when Beijing Olympian Peter O'Leary began preparing for the Qingdao venue.
Already, his youngest brother, Nicholas, (or "Nin") had decided to take up the sport.
Progress into the sport for Nin O'Leary has been rapid and an invite for the "champion of champions" last weekend was an inevitability.
Ironically, Peter O'Leary had been unavailable for the championships even though an invite for current Olympians is automatic.
However, some gentle pressure on the former All-Ireland champion persuaded him to take up the invite and the mix was set - almost.
If the O'Leary brothers' competitive edge had come from anywhere, it wasn't from the water and more likely from their father Anthony, who has multiple championship wins to his credit, and a wild-card invite for him was fortuitous in setting the scene where Nin emerged overall winner with Anthony placed second and Peter third.
Yet it wasn't without some further irony that the final eight boats counted just two "big-boat" sailors, Anthony O'Leary included alongside Nigel Biggs as representative of this section of sport.
While Anthony O'Leary placed second in the event and Biggs was sixth, none of the other helmsman representatives from winning handicap boats made the final cut after three flights comprising 24 sailors.
Instead, the finalists comprised an assortment of one-design sailors from popular though hardly in themselves as representative of the sport in Ireland as the handicapped racing classes which count hundreds of boats and thousands of sailors.
Similarly, not one dinghy representative achieved a place in the final and though classes abound, numbers in most fleets struggle to make the effort of running championships worthwhile.
Junior classes would appear to be the exception yet even here there appears to be evidence of slipping standards; one class representative recently cited the example of British visitors now considering sending their silver-level sailors to Irish national championships as standards have recently been insufficient to justify sending their best young sailors.
It may yet be suggested that the presence of our top Olympians in the All-Irelands is a turn-off for the best club-level sailors taking part. But the reality is that just two of the Olympic panel were actually sailing last weekend and with Peter O'Leary's third place and a win by a relative newcomer to the sport, that excuse is unlikely to hold water when it comes to considering whether standards in the domestic arena are slipping.
