Coach says betting furore has upset O’Leary

Ireland’s troubled Star crew Peter O’Leary and David Burrows have had a day to reset their gauges and hopefully come out fighting for the second half of their Olympic regatta.

The duo remain under instruction not to discuss an accusation that O’Leary placed bets during the 2008 Olympic regatta in China but the pair, who had established themselves as potential medal contenders, have performed far below expectations.

Their German coach, Marc Pickel, who has helped guide Canadians Ross MacDonald and Mike Wolfs to a silver medal in the class at the 2004 Olympics in Athens is adamant the issue has badly affected their regatta.

“Peter has been really tight and bunched up through the first part of the regatta, certainly not as loose and chilled as he normally is,” he said.

“The whole situation has not been good. I think he is over the worst of it now and hopefully he can come out strong through the second half of the regatta.

“I don’t think he had much sleep at all to start with. I don’t think he could believe the whole situation, it is something we could not have foreseen.

“But in such a situation we really have tried to remain positive and accentuate how to make good performances, to come out with good starts. But in this first half they have not started as well.

“Peter really has lost that lightness he usually has. Nothing much tends to phase him, he is a very easy going individual. But here we are half way through the regatta and we need to step up and get some results out of this.

“Otherwise up to now the programme has been so good so this whole situation has not been good at all.”