Pressure on O’Leary and Milne in Star class

IT IS now up to Cork’s Peter O’Leary and Stephen Milne to rescue Ireland’s chances of a memorable result from this Olympic regatta, but the Star class pair have some work on their hands in a white hot fleet after sailing to two 13th places, their worst scores so far, yesterday.

After seven races sailed, O’Leary and Milne lie 14th in the 16-boat fleet, while their British training partners Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson launched themselves into second place overall yesterday after finishing second and first, to lie three points behind Sweden’s Freddie Loof and Anders Ekstrom.

All four top crews in the class are steered by past Olympic medallists, formerly top protagonists in the Finn fleet, while Brazil’s world champions Robert Scheidt and Bruno Parada lie eighth.