O’Leary and Burrows strike gold in Weymouth

Ireland’s Peter O’Leary and David Burrows signalled their intent for London 2012 on Saturday when they won gold at the pre-Olympic world cup regatta in Weymouth.

The pair defeated Britain’s Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson and four-time Olympic medallist Robert Scheidt with Bruno Prada from Brazil in the double-scoring medal race finale for the top 10 boats in their class.

The result followed the earlier Laser Radial class medal race in which Ireland’s Annalise Murphy won bronze. None of the class regulars such as China’s Lijia Xu, Belgium’s Marit Bouwmeester or Evi Van Acker from the Netherlands featured on the podium.