Burrows to draw on Gold Cup experience

With just three more days of action left in the Finn Class, Ireland's David Burrows is in line to better his ninth place finish of four years ago and achieve Ireland’s best Olympic sailing result since 1980.

To do that, he still needs an improvement in his final five races and the 27-year-old Dublin accountant will surely draw on the experience of making a late run to bronze at January’s Gold Cup, the Finn World Championships in Rio de Janeiro.

Burrows had a mixed day yesterday, grabbing 18th and second in races five and six of the single-handed dinghy event but both sailor and coach Luca Devotti know that inconsistency will not do in the run in to Saturday’s medal ceremony.

“He should really be in the top five,” said Devotti, a silver medallist for Italy in Sydney, of his 10th-ranked pupil.

“David has been first to the windmark three times this week but has been overhauled. Besides (Ben) Ainslie, he is the fittest guy here and cannot afford to let the pressure get to him in the final five races.”

Irish team manager Garrett Connolly added: “If he can get the consistency back into his racing, I think he can improve his standing. Of course he will be relying on others to slip up, though Ainslie and Rafael Trujillo are showing some great form.”

Burrows currently has an Athens CV showing 17, 14, 9, 3, 18, 2, with one discard, and restarts his Olympic challenge tomorrow at the Agios Kosmas centre.