So hard to lose out on final day, says devastated Murphy

An hour before Katie Taylor edged closer to an Olympic dream in the Excel Arena, another Irish woman’s medal hopes were blown out over 144 miles away.

Annalise Murphy has made sailing a water cooler topic for the past week in Ireland with her inspired performances in the Laser Radial class on the waters off Weymouth and Portland that left the sport’s experts swooning.

She began the medal race in third but in a devastating half-hour of competition, slipped to fifth on the day, and fourth overall with China, the Netherlands and Belgium claiming the podium places.

Coming fourth in her first Olympics, Ireland’s best result in the sport since the silver medal success of David Wilkins and James Wilkinson in the Flying Dutchman class, mattered little to the National Yacht Club member.

“It is just hard when you’re in the medals all week and you lose out on the very last day,” an emotional Murphy said. “It’s really hard, but I’m only 22 so I’ve got four years to train hard for the Rio Games and hopefully I can come good then. I sailed so well this week. I had my first two days which were perfect, but even after that I felt like I sailed really well in all the races.”

Murphy, whose mother Cathy competed in the 1988 Seoul Games, felt she struggled from an early stage yesterday.

“I think it’s just sport. I missed out on a few gusts of wind and then I was behind, and I was trying to catch up for the rest of the race. It’s really tough.

“All the other girls were so good as well. It wasn’t like it was going to be easy to beat them. I was just at the wrong end of the four of us at the end.

“In any other event if I was going into a medal race on 34 points you’d probably be guaranteed to win or at least medal. I was just unlucky that three other girls had the regattas of their lives as well.”

Murphy wasn’t alone in struggling to comprehend how she will leave England empty handed.

The Irish Sailing Association’s high performance director James O’Callaghan battled to control his emotions.

“We are all pretty devastated. You guys know we set her bar pretty high, we came close…” he said before his voice trailed off.

“Fourth is almost like a rite of passage but it is a cruel, cruel rite of passage.”

He replied when asked if she had made errors yesterday: “I don’t know that she necessarily did. When you are in a position like that you want someone to hold their nerve, hold their composure and I am so proud that she did. That is all you can ask of your athletes.

“ I think she said to you in any other regatta, with those points, she would have medalled. But experience does count for a bit and we now have a 22-year-old debutant that has come fourth in her first Games.”

And Murphy isn’t the only exciting talent on Irish sailing’s horizons. Tralee teenager Sophie Browne was second girl in the World Optimists in New Zealand in January while Carlow’s Finn Lynch won silver in the World Youth Sailing Championships at Dun Laoghaire last month.

“The development programme shows that targeted investment works, there’s no doubt that Irish sailing has moved forward a lot in the last six or seven years,” O’Callaghan said.

“Annalise will have inspired all of our junior pathway sailors and hopefully we’ll get some new people into the sport as a result of her performances this week.”