Irelands most likely Olympic 2012 Medals

Dan man

Ireland's Annalise Murphy currently lies in silver medal position after 5 races in the women's laser radial at the Sailing World Championships in Perth. After a bad start in race 1 where she finished 30th, Murphy has been in outstanding form, posting two race wins as well as a 2nd and a 4th meaning she can discard the bad race at the start. Great news.

Dodge

She's 2nd overall now

http://www.perth2011.com/competition/PERTH2011/SAW103000/results

Even with that terrible 30th, she's 7th and well on course for qualification

Dan man

Yes and in great form, hopefully the winds stay fresh as she is probably better than anyone in strong wind conditions. It is light winds where she is prone to the odd bad race.

Dan man

In the men's 470 dinghy class, Ireland's Ger Owens and Scott Flanagan currently lie in 31st place but more crucially they are 21st best nation at the moment. This is surely close to a qualifying position. I think the 19 best nations at the worlds qualify in the 470 class.

Dodge

19 spots available (not including GB)

So not including them, they're in 20th. Less than 5 behind Switzeland and Canada

Dan man

Yes indeed, that's encouraging. Let's hope they stay consistent.

Dan man

Annalise Murphy can now be added to the list of Olympic qualifiers as she has secured a quota spot for Ireland due to her fine performances in Perth.
http://www.afloat.ie/sail/events/olympics-2012/item/17507-sailor-annalise-murphy-qualifies-for-london-2012

Dan man

Day 6 of the World Sailing Championships has been one to forget for Annalise Murphy after two very bad races which sees her drop down the overall standings to 10th. A 37th and 17th in races 6 and 7 scuppers her chances of a serious medal shot. It also means she will have to count that 30th place from race 1 amongst her scores which is a bit of a disaster. There is still scope for her to move up the standings and post a good result but its a disappointment given where she was lying after yesterday's great performances.
In the men's 470 fleet, Ireland's Ger Owens and Scott Flanagan are continuing to perform well and they now lie 29th overall and are 21st best nation. As it stands they are 1 place shy of an Olympic qualifying berth but plenty more racing to come.

Dodge

Main goal for Murphy was achieved. Hopefully the inconsistency give her something to work on. At least she won't become complacent

Dan man

A 4th place finish in race 8 has propelled Annalise back up to 5th place now. Good stuff.

Dan man

Ger Owens and Scott Flanagan are now 34th overall and 22nd best nation after 6 races in the men's 470, just 10 points off a qualifying spot.

Dan man

In the men's 470 Ireland's Ger Owens and Scott Flanagan are now in 35th position overall after 8 races and 24th best nation. There is a bit of a gap now between themselves and the Olympic quota positions so they will need a couple of good results to keep them in contention.

Dan man

The men's 470 duo are 25 points off the last Olympic quota spot (China currently occupy this position) so will need to pull off a couple of super races tomorrow to move up the leaderboard sufficiently. The men's 470 will finish up tomorrow but even if they do not qualify at this regatta, they will have another chance to book a spot at the Olympics at some stage next year.

Dan man

In badminton it has been a good day for Ireland's players in the Irish Open, an international competition which is a ranking event and thus has Olympic qualification points up for grabs. Chloe Magee is through to the quarter-finals of the women's singles, a result which further strengthens her grip on Olympic qualification. Although she is not certain of her place in the Olympic competition, it seems unthinkable that she would not go on to make her second Games in succession. She had a double success today as she is also through to the mixed doubles quarter-finals playing with her younger brother Sam Magee. The duo are tantalisingly close to the Olympic quota positions so a good result here will do their chances of making the team for London the world of good.
In the men's singles Scott Evans crashed out to a difficult opponent, G.B. no.1 Rajiv Ouseph, but performed well in the match, winning the first set and coming close to stealing the win in the second set. Evans is also inside the Olympic qualification positions as it stands but needs to stay consistent in order to remain in this position by May of 2012 when the qualification period for badminton comes to a close.
All in all, more positive news from an Irish badminton perspective. Ireland's standing in this sport has greatly improved in the last few years and encouragingly there seems to be some decent juniors coming through the ranks also. Good job Badminton Ireland.

Dan man

In hockey news, the Irish women's team are playing in a 4-Nations Tournament taking place in Buenos Aires in Argentina. In their opening game they went down 2-0 to South Africa. The girls rebounded with a good 1-0 win over India and will play hosts Argentina tomorrow and they will surely be stiff opposition. This tournament should act as decent preparation for an important few months ahead which will culminate in a shot at Olympic qualification in the spring.

Dan man

In an extremely complicated qualification procedure it appears that as things stand Ireland have 4 riders in qualification positions for the Olympic Eventing competition. These are Michael Ryan, Mark Kyle, Camilla Speirs and Jayne Doherty. This would mean that not only would they compete in the individual eventing competition, but would allow Ireland to enter the team event also. The most riders Ireland can qualify for the eventing competition is 5 and they might yet get the full quota by the time the rankings are finalised in March. The one slight drawback is that some of our better riders are not in qualifying positions, perhaps due to the fact that riders gain ranking points not with a specific horse but can be gained with any number horses over the course of the qualifying period. This means that those riders without a string of top horses may struggle to compete in enough events in order to accumulate enough qualification points.

Dan man

At the sailing world championships, Ireland's Annalise Murphy had the best possible day winning both races and moving into 4th place overall, just 8 points off the bronze medal position. This is a hugely encouraging and she now needs to beat the American sailor Paige Riley by 4 places in tomorrow's medal race to possibly claim a podium finish.

finbarrk

Do you think both Lynch and Twomey will qualify In the Showjumping Dan?

Dan man

finbarrk wrote: »

Do you think both Lynch and Twomey will qualify In the Showjumping Dan?

Well, I think that Ireland should certainly qualify two individual showjumpers for the Olympics and on current form, the two look like being Billy Twomey and Denis Lynch. Twomey has been in superb form all year with his mount Tinka's Serenade looking particularly impressive and 2 good back-up horses in Je T'aime Flamenco and Romanov. Denis Lynch is no.8 in the Rolex World Rankings and Billy Twomey is in 12th. Next best Irish is Shane Breen in 56th.

Dodge

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/medal-tracker.htm#boxing_lightweight_women

InfoStrada and USA Today have updated their tracker. Currently have Ireland down for 1 gold (Taylor) and 1 bronze (Nevin).

Other boxers ranked in top 8 are Barnes, Moylette and Egan (even if none of them have qualified yet)

Olive Loughnane ranked 6th in the 20k walk. Can't see any other athletes in top 8, but suspect Annalise Murphy will end up thier in the sailing.

Dodge

Also, Annalise Murphy thinks she can medal in London

http://www.rte.ie/sport/sailing/2011/1213/murphya.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Dan man

I have a sneaking suspicion that not only will Rob Heffernan finish in the top 8 in the 50km walk but will be a seriously good bet for a medal in this event at the Olympics. His talent in this event is yet to be fully reached but he is probably one of the most promising Irish athletes that is going to London 2012.

Dodge

Fully agree. Needs to stay fully fit though. Unlucky with his family circumstances in the Worlds. I expect him to finihs top 8, and who knows...

Dan man

Dodge wrote: »

Fully agree. Needs to stay fully fit though. Unlucky with his family circumstances in the Worlds. I expect him to finihs top 8, and who knows...

Yes, it was a shame he didn't get the opportunity to compete in Daegu, but in a way it has probably made him more hungry for success in London. There is an interesting side story to this in that Rob Heffernan and his wife Marian Heffernan (Andrews) look set to become the first husband and wife from Ireland to compete in the same Olympic Games. Marian is currently part of the women's 4x400m relay team that broke the Irish record at the Worlds in Daegu and have so much more to give. Joanne Cuddihy is rounding into great form and Marian herself has said in interviews that she personally can take plenty of time off her own 400m P.B. It will be fascinating to see how much time they can take off the Irish record this season considering the fact that they suffered a slight hiccup at the start of their race in Daegu, where Marian seemed to miss the starters-gun.
Would be a great news story for the husband-wife duo heading to compete at the Olympics as well as the Magee siblings in the badminton who are battling hard to qualify in the mixed doubles event.

Dodge

http://www.sailing.ie/ISANews/tabid/115/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/14350/Perth-2011-ISAF-Sailing-World-Championships.aspx

Seaton/McGovern qualify for Olympics in 49er class in Sailing

Burrows/O'Leary in the Star class are currently the 11th nation, with 11 spots avilable. 2 races left (on Friday)

Dan man

Seaton and McGovern have been performing very well in Perth, excellent news that they have made the Olympics. I fully expect O'Leary and Burrows to join them but I have been very disappointed with how they are performing. They are not showing the consistency needed to push for major medals. The one good thing is that they are very experienced sailors at Weymouth where the Olympic regatta will be staged.

Dan man

At the Sailing World Championships in Perth it looks increasingly likely that Ireland's James Espey is going to qualify a boat for Ireland in the men's Laser class. 2 good results today has propelled him up to 63rd position in a 147 boat fleet. This may not seem significant, however, with 35 quota spots up for grabs things are looking good for Espey and Ireland. He currently lies 30th best nation (excluding Great Britain) and has a good deal of breathing space over the 36th best nation at present, Ukraine. Espey has totalled 100 points so far, and has a cushion of 30 points over Ukraine. Of course there is still much sailing to be had but things are looking positive so far. Good work James Espey.

Dodge

O'Leary/Burrows qualify for Olympics. Excellent result as only 11 qualify from these world championships, and only 16 in total at the Olympics

ormond lad

Dodge wrote: »

O'Leary/Burrows qualify for Olympics. Excellent result as only 11 qualify from these world championships, and only 16 in total at the Olympics

http://www.rte.ie/sport/sailing/2011/1216/worlds_ireland.html
Ireland's Star boat qualifies for the Olympics

Friday, 16 December 2011 11:28
Peter O'Leary and David Burrows have officially qualified Ireland for the 2012 Olympics in the Star sailing discipline.

This morning they were the 11th nation at the ISAF World Sailing Championships, Perth, Australia, with only the top-11 nations qualifying; they had three races ahead of them and the Italians, Swiss and Spanish all eager to take their position.

A seventh in the first race eased the nerves and gave them some breathing space. However, the second race was where the real drama unfolded.

They rounded the first mark in the mid 20s, but had an incident with the Spanish boat as they rounded, rather than risk disqualification they opted to take penalty turns.
This left them at the back of the fleet with their Olympic dreams seemingly in tatters.
However, the team dug deep and showed some real grit in making a comeback to finish the race in 13th.

This result lifts them to 12th overall and the ninth nation, thus securing Ireland their third boat at the Olympics.

ISA Performance Director James O'Callaghan remarked: "The Stars certainly did not do it the easy way, but they showed great character holding their nerve when it looked bleak during that second race.
"The programme has delivered on its target with the Irish Sports Council of getting three boats qualified early.
"A lot of hard work from each of the teams and coaches have made this possible. With our eyes now firmly focussed on the Games we will be working hard with the ISC and OCI to make sure we have a successful Olympics."

Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern, who qualified Ireland in the 49er class two days ago, slipped two positions today to 12th on the leaderboard.

They sailed three races, placing 8th, 17th and 12th. They have one final day of racing tomorrow where they will need to place top ten in order to make the medal race on Sunday.

Ireland's James Espey had a rest day today. He is currently the 32nd nation in the Laser fleet with the top-35 nations qualifying for London 2012.
He will need a good performance tomorrow to ensure Ireland qualify in the Laser class.

knockcon

Hi All,
I'm hoping to get a list of those Irish athletes/competitors who have already achieved qualification for the Olympics. Can't find it anywhere online. Can anyone provide one?