Irelands most likely Olympic 2012 Medals

Here is a table which outlines the nations that James is in competition with in terms of battling it out for Olympic qualification:
Notes:
The top 12 nations in this list at the end of competition will have earned an Olympic quota place for their country.
Sailors are ranked such that the lower the score, the better the result. For example, if a sailor finishes first in a race, then they add just 1 point to their total. If they place 50th then they add a whopping 50 points to their tally, thus damaging their potential of a good overall result.
Each sailor can discard one result after the first 10 races after which the field will be split into gold and silver fleets. Discarded scores will be displayed in brackets ().
A black flag (disqualification) will result in the region of a 57 point penalty.


Position|Country|Race 1|Race 2|Race 3|Race 4|Total
1|IRELAND (James Espey)|7|(29)|3|20|30
2|Thailand|9|14|12|(17)|35
3|Lithuania|23|14|7|(24)|44
4|Portugal|16|21|9|(35)|46
5|Malaysia|15|(45)|13|23|51
6|Puerto Rico|(45)|12|36|5|53
7|Tunisia|23|(33)|24|6|53
8|Czech Republic|(26)|20|10|26|56
9|Venezuela|9|(39)|14|34|57
10|Colombia|19|35|(46)|5|59
11|Ukraine|(47)|3|32|26|61
12|Serbia|(48)|15|28|23|66
13|Trinidad & Tobago|30|(57)|17|19|66
14|Japan|(27)|21|24|21|66
15|South Africa|27|23|18|(43)|68
16|Montenegro|(51)|27|27|16|70
17|Peru|26|11|(44)|40|77
18|Moldova|35|(42)|31|17|83
19|El Salvador|6|32|50|(51)|88
20|Mexico|(44)|42|33|22|97
21|Seychelles|34|26|(46)|42|102
22|Dominican Republic|35|29|42|(47)|106
23|Monaco|38|(46)|25|46|109
24|Cook Islands|41|(51)|47|46|134
25|Egypt|(51)|48|44|51|143
26|Kyrgysztan|(53)|50|48|52|150
27|Bulgaria|47|54|54|(55)|155
28|Iran|52|54|(55)|54|160

At the Star World Sailing Championships, Irish duo Peter O'Leary and David Burrows have placed 4th in the second race, moving them into the overall lead. Great stuff.
In other sailing news James Espey finished 19th and 17th in today's 2 races at the Laser World Championships to remain well on course for Olympic qualification. More updates on his overall situation later.

Ireland has another Olympic qualifier with the news that James Espey has made the gold fleet at the World Laser Sailing Championships in Boltenhagen. He cannot finish outside the top 12 of those nations not yet qualified for London thus earning a quota spot for Ireland to sail this event at the Olympics. Very well done to James, he has been racing consistently at this regatta and never looked in any danger of not making the Olympic qualifying positions.

At the Star World Sailing Championships in France, Ireland's Peter O'Leary and David Burrows have dropped back to third place overall after a 12th place finish in today's race. The scores are very tight at the top and the Irish lads are right up there with the best in the world. All to play for.

Skid wrote: »

It really demonstrates how much effort goes into just qualifying for the Olympics. For every athlete who makes it to London there are many more near misses. Hopefully we can swell the ranks of the team in the coming weeks.

Indeed, making the Olympics in this day and age takes a monumental effort and an unthinkable level of dedication so anyone who on the Olympic team wins my respect. It's always very unfortunate to see anyone miss out narrowly, not because they were a let-down, but because I can see how much time and commitment these guys invest in their chosen disciplines.

Very good news obviously about James Espey, I'd have high hopes for the 470 duo also when their qualification event gets underway shortly. I make it that we have 43 athletes on the team now and should get a fair few more onto that total by the end of the various qualification deadlines.

At the Men's 49er World Sailing Championships, the Irish duo Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern placed 18th in race 5 and followed this with a superb victory in race 6. This means they move up to 41st position overall but they will not be happy with their current placing. Still, much more racing to come so there is plenty of scope to improve their ranking.

Very exciting times for Irish Sailing as the Irish duo of Peter O'Leary and David Burrows are in bronze medal position at the Men's Star World Championships with the competition coming to a climax with tomorrow's final race. The Irish team are on 26 points after they discarded today's result (18th place from race 5) meaning they have a 3 point advantage over the 4th placed team from Poland. Here is a link to the current standings:

http://www.starworlds2012.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=170&lang=en

If the Irish lads bring home silverware from this competition, confidence will be sky high ahead of the Olympics, where they will race in very familiar waters in Weymouth, a place where Peter in particular has experienced huge success in the recent past. Best of luck to them tomorrow, would be amazing for Irish sailing to get a crew onto the podium.

Elsewhere, at the World Laser Championships for men in Boltenhagen, Germany, Ireland's James Espey finished the competition in 37th place overall, a best ever result for the 28-year-old Belfast sailor.

Scores don't carry forward

You can see full details of the qualifying runs here;
http://webfiles.kanu-schwaben-augsburg.de/2012/kanuslalom/Euro%202012/Quali%20K1M.pdf

Rheinisch would need to make up less than a second on the Slovakian

Dodge wrote: »

Scores don't carry forward

You can see full details of the qualifying runs here;
http://webfiles.kanu-schwaben-augsburg.de/2012/kanuslalom/Euro%202012/Quali%20K1M.pdf

Rheinisch would need to make up less than a second on the Slovakian

But as the scores don't carry forward this is not the case. As far as I'm aware it is a clean slate in the next round. The first two runs were qualification runs and the best of the two runs were used for each paddler. All of the qualifiers usually start the next round on zero but after this each score is accumulative. I'm not 100% certain as I can't see the qualification rules for this event but this is the usual procedure.

Nothing official just yet but I make it that Hannah Craig has qualified Ireland a place at the London Olympics for the women's K1 Slalom. Unofficially Hannah has finished 25th overall and whilst she does not make it into the semi-finals she has done enough to earn Ireland an Olympic quota place. She ensured that Ireland has finished best nation of those not yet qualified for London and with 2 quota places on offer at this event she has fulfilled the qualification criteria.
Hope to hear some confirmation of this excellent news very soon.

Dan man wrote: »

Nothing official just yet but I make it that Hannah Craig has qualified Ireland a place at the London Olympics for the women's K1 Slalom. Unofficially Hannah has finished 25th overall and whilst she does not make it into the semi-finals she has done enough to earn Ireland an Olympic quota place. She ensured that Ireland has finished best nation of those not yet qualified for London and with 2 quota places on offer at this event she has fulfilled the qualification criteria.
Hope to hear some confirmation of this excellent news very soon.

After the first round she was 29th, with Helen Barnes the other Irish kayaker the closest challenger. The Dutch and Swiss girls were next in line

Hannah's 2nd run was even faster and would've been top 10 if not for 4 penalty points. She finished 4 seconds ahead of the Swiss and Ukraine girls to qualify

Well done Hannah

I've combined the times for the first two runs of the 5 main competitors (as this is hwo socring works in the semis). Hope for Eoin as he comes out on Top

IRL1 93.43 92.93 186.36
Croatia 95.17 91.4 186.57
Slovakia 94.85 92.09 186.94
Russia 93.82 93.53 187.35
IRL2 93.78 97.75 191.53

As you can see though a second covers the top 4. Will be very tight

At the Modern Pentathlon World Championships in Rome there was disappointment for Ireland's Arthur Lanigan-O'Keeffe as he failed to make the final on Sunday. He dropped from 12th place to 14th in the final event (combined shoot and run) meaning he did not finish amongst the top 12 qualifying positions in his heat.
Similarly to Natalya Coyle in the women's event, this narrow miss has made his task of Olympic qualification a lot harder now. He will need a very strong showing at the World Cup Final later this month, where a top 3 placing amongst pentathletes not yet qualified for London will be enough to earn him a quota place. Otherwise he will need to finish as high up as possible in that event in the hope to overhaul those ahead of him in the Olympic rankings.
Elsewhere, Eanna Bailey finished 19th in his heat and set a new swim PB in the process. Well done Eanna.
No matter how things pan out (good or bad) for our pentathletes this time round, Ireland has a very bright future with this current crop of talented youngsters.
If the current rate of progress is maintained then we could hope to have serious contenders for Rio 2016.

Not official yet but I think Eoin Rheinisch may just have qualified an Olympic quota place for Ireland in men's K1 Slalom. Hope to hear confirmation of this very positive news soon.

Looks like 10 qualify for final, but he's still done enough to qualify for London

UPDATE:
We have seen three more additions to the Irish Olympic team over the last few days bringing the numbers of Irish qualifiers to 45 to date. Despite the fact that all 3 who earned the quota spots secured qualifying berths for the country rather than for themselves, all the indications suggest that it will indeed be them who will be awarded the Olympic starting places by their respective national federations. Therefore I am going to fire ahead and add them to my list of qualifiers by county: James Espey (men's Laser Sailing), Hannah Craig (women's K1 Slalom Canoeing) and Eoin Rheinisch (men's K1 Slalom Canoeing).
These latest additions have seen a lot of change to the table of qualifiers by county with Antrim moving into 2nd place with 5 qualifiers to date. Kildare also get off the mark becoming the 13th county on the list of qualifiers.
The ratio of men to women now stands at 24:16 in favour of the men (3 men for every 2 women) but as the 5 equestrian places are yet to be determined (both men and women will be considered for selection) and chances for 2 women's relay teams for London (swimming and running) the distribution of men and women qualifiers could even itself out.
There is still much scope for the size of the squad to grow further over the next 4-6 weeks, we could still see as many as 60 on the Irish team if things go well over the coming period.
Another update this morning: Colin Griffin of Leitrim has amde the A-standard for the men's 50km walk and will now go to his second Olympics. Leitrim are the 14th county on the list now and finally Connacht have another qualifier besides Paul Hession and Olive Loughnane.


* denotes the fact that the current number may reduce by one when the women's marathon team is finalised.

County|Number of athletes qualified|Details|
Dublin|8*|Linda Byrne, Ava Hutchinson, Maria McCambridge, Deirdre Ryan, Annalise Murphy, Mark Kenneally, Barry Murphy, David Burrows
Antrim|5|Ryan Seaton, Michael Conlan, Paddy Barnes, Lisa Kearney, Hannah Craig
Cork|4|Derval O'Rourke, Robert Heffernan, Ciaran O'Lionaird, Peter O'Leary
Donegal|3*|Brendan Boyce, Chloe Magee, Caitriona Jennings
Down|3|Matt McGovern, Martyn Irvine, James Espey
Galway|2|Olive Loughnane, Paul Hession
Kilkenny|2|Darren O'Neill, Joanne Cuddihy
Wexford|2|Grainne Murphy, Adam Nolan
Wicklow|2|Fionnuala Britton, Stephanie Reilly
Derry|1|Aileen Morrison
Kildare|1|Eoin Rheinisch
Leitrim|1|Colin Griffin
Longford|1|Derek Burnett
Westmeath|1|John Joe Nevin
Other/Abroad|3|Alistair Cragg (South Africa), Kieran Behan (England), Tori Pena (U.S.A.)





Additional Info:

• So far the team is made up of 25 men and 17 women and 5 unknown equestrian riders. The number of women qualifiers however will be reduced by one when Athletics Ireland choose their marathon team.
• Qualifiers by province: Leinster (17), Ulster (12), Munster (4), Connacht (3).
• Kieran Behan (gymnastics qualifier) although born in London, England has Irish parents: mother is from Monaghan and father from Dublin.
• Tori Pena was born in California but competes for Finn Valley A.C. in Donegal and her grandmother was born in Derry.
• Maria McCambridge has been living in Donegal for the last few years and competes for Letterkenny A.C. She is married to Letterkenny runner Gary Crossan and she is now living in Donegal with her family. Caitriona Jennings rather ironically hails from Letterkenny but runs for Rathfarnam A.C. in Dublin.
• Olive Loughnane was born in Cork and indeed currently lives in Cork so she has strong connections to that county. Neverthless she grew up in Galway and is a product of Carrabane A.C. in Loughrea, Galway so I think in this case it may be fairer to include her in that county's total.
• So far, just as many Corkmen as Dublin men have qualified (3 a-piece).
• 9 qualifiers were born in Northern Ireland (6 men and 3 women).
• Lisa Kearney will be Ireland's first ever female judoka to take part in the Olympic Games.
• Perhaps unsurprisingly, Murphy is the most common surname, with 3 Murphys on the team.
• Trap shooter Derek Burnett is the oldest member of the Irish Olympic team at 41 years of age. Maria McCambridge is the oldest women on the team, she will be 37 when the Olympic Opening Ceremony takes place and the youngest being Grainne Murphy who is just 19. Flyweight boxer Michael Conlan is the youngest male on the team at just 20 years of age.
• The average age of our women when the Olympics get underway is 28.5yrs for women and 28.6yrs for the men. Overall the average is 28.5yrs for our Olympians.
• 23 of the qualifiers will be first-time Olympians in London; 9 qualifiers are returning for a second time with 8 of these 9 having previously competed in Beijing in 2008 and Maria McCambridge returning after having competed in Athens 2004; 3 qualifiers (Derval O'Rourke, Alistair Cragg and Eoin Rheinisch) will be appearing in their 3rd consecutive Olympic Games; and a total of 4 Olympic veterans will be returning to the Olympic stage to make a 4th appearance, namely Robert Heffernan, Olive Loughnane and Derek Burnett who will travel to their 4th consecutive Olympics and David Burrows, who made his Olympic debut way back in Atlanta in 1996 (missed out on Beijing).

Colin Griffin has made the Olympic A-standard for the men's 50km walk at the Race Walk World Cup in Saransk, Russia today. His time of 3hrs 52mins 54secs was comfortably inside the standard of 3:59hrs. He is the third athlete to qualify for this event for London 2012 and means we will have at least 17 qualifiers in the sport of athletics. Ireland now has 46 qualifiers for the Olympics.
Leitrim are now off the mark in terms of Olympic qualifiers!

Dodge wrote: »

Laura Reynolds got the B standard in the walk but won't go as Olive Loughnane has the A standard. Olive finished 8th in the world cup of walking

Laura is just 72secs off that A standard...over a distance of 20km, that is a gap that she could overcome. She will probably have at least one more crack at it, hopefully she can pull it off.
Just read that Colin had 2 warnings after 10km today, another one and he would have been DQd...talk about intense pressure! The heat was also intense so that was a really strong performance today by Colin. He's off to his second Olympics now!

Having been analysing the results of this weekend's Modern Pentathlon World Championships I am increasingly confident that Ireland's Natalya Coyle is going to make it to the Olympics.
Although those championships did not go according to plan for Natalya (she missed the final by 1 place), other results have worked out very positively for the young Meath woman. The reason I suggest that it has played out positively for her is that all 3 available Olympic slots on offer at the World Championships went to pentathletes ranked abover her in the Olympic rankings list. How does this benefit her? Well there are 7 quota places available from the Olympic rankings list for the highest ranked non-qualifiers from world and continental championships, and as a result of the 3 places from the 2012 worlds going to those ranked above her, it effectively bumps Natalya up 3 places in the race for the final 7 quota positions.
The rankings have not yet been updated after this weekends World Championships but Natalya will lose little ground on her rivals. Not very many of her close rivals below her in the rankings made any ground (Crognale of Italy and Wojcik of Poland excepted). Here were the rankings of those unqualified athletes before the world championships minus those 3 who earned quota places this weekend.

1. Sylvia Gawlikowska (Poland)
2. Iryna Khokhlova (Ukraine)
3. Natalie Dianova (Czech Republic)
4. Donna Vakalis (Canada)
5. Natalya Coyle (IRELAND)
6. Katarzyna Wojcik (Poland)
7. Sabrina Crognale (Italy)
8. Claudia Cesarini (Italy)
9. Suzanne Stettinius (U.S.A.)
10. Lavinia Bonessio (Italy)

Natalya jumps up from 8th place to 5th (inside the top 7 qualifying spots). But remember the ranking points have not updated so she will lose ground to those who made the World Championships final. Some of those who made the final are already ranked above her and others are a little too far back in the rankings to upset her position too much. The other very encouraging thing is that there is only one remaining event that counts towards the world rankings. This is the World Cup Series Grand Final and there will only be 36 pentathletes at this event and Natalya is one of them.
In addition, as the British team qualified 2 athletes the automatic host nation quota place will be re-distributed to the 8th best non-qualifier in the Olympic rankings, further bolstering Natalya's chances.
A lot of those who on the face of things are challenging her Olympic position will not be able to add to their total further, whereas Natalya should be able to add at least some points to her total (obviously the higher up she finishes in that competition, the better for her ranking points).
It's hard to ascertain at the minute but when the World Rankings update this week there is even the possibility that Natalya will be in an unassailable position in the list and if not, she will have a great chance to overcome any deficit facing her in that final event.

Arthur wasn't just as lucky as a lot of guys ranked not too far behind him made the World Championship final and could overtake him in the rankings when they update. But as was the case with Natalya, he was helped in that all 3 quota places on offer went to pentathletes ranked above him, thus bumping him up the pecking order in the non-qualified list. Here is the Olympic rankings list before it has been updated but with those 3 qualifiers from this weekend now removed from the list of non-qualifiers. Top 8 are in qualifying positions as things stand:

1. Pavlo Tymoschenko (Ukraine)
2. Stanislau Zhurauliou (Belarus)
3. Justinas Kinteris (Lithuania)
4. Deniss Cerkovskis (Latvia)
5. Jean Maxence Berrou (France)
6. Ondrej Polivka (Czech Republic)
7. Alvaro Sandoval (Mexico)
8. Amro El Geziry (Egypt)
9. Golis Remigiusz (Poland)
10. Sam Sacksen (U.S.A.)
11. Nikkos Papadopolo (Guatemala)
12. Arthur Lanigan O'Keeffe (IRELAND)

As you can see Arthur has more work to do but what is encouraging is that he too has made the World Cup Series Grand Final which is the final qualifying event, and a lot of those directly above him have not qualified for that event, meaning that their rankings tally can not increase further. Arthur will still need a high placing in that event in order to overcome the deficit.

The qualification deadline varies by sport. Triathlon and modern pentathlon are based on Olympic rankings with cut-off on May 31/June 1. Athletics deadline is July 8th...indeed athletes can qualify at the European Championships in Helsinki.
Swimming times must be achieved by 3rd of July for pool events and the final qualifying tournament for the open water swim is June 9/10.
Other athletes currently on the reserve list such as Scott Evans (badminton), Anna Merveldt (dressage) and some of our eventers will find out shortly whether or not they will get call ups. Joe Ward in the men's light-heavyweight boxing should also know this month if he will get a wildcard invitation for London.