Dickson and Waddilove miss out on podium in men's skiff medal race

An error at the start of the race cost the duo and they were unable to catch up with the pack. 

GUTTED: Ireland’s Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove dejected after the race.  Picture:©INPHO/Oceansport/David Branigan

The Olympic medal dreams of Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove were dashed on Friday afternoon as the medal race final for the Men’s skiff event ended with Spain, New Zealand and the USA taking to the podium.

A starting-line error was their un-doing as they returned to recross the line when the race committee signaled that one or more boats had started early.

Three boats returned while a fourth was informed shortly afterwards that they had infringed and withdrew from the race.

After restarting, the Irish crew opted to take the right handside of the course, desperately looking for an advantage.

Except that the pre-race strategy favoured by all the teams had been to take the left handside of the course.

The Polish team also restarted the race and sailed left, ultimately going on to finish fifnth.

Had the Irish boat followed suit, and finished either fifth or sixth they would have won Silver or Bronze.

But the prssure of the medal race final is immense and appearances are deceiving.

After a week of finishing every night in second overall, Dickson and Waddiloves’ game had been transformed from their previous flashes of brilliance to consistently high-performing medal contenders.

Expectations of a medal were well-founded and rightly justified.

Except that sport is such a cruel pursuit and the smallest error can be so costly. Finishing fourth out of 20 boats, each having earned their place after gruelling qualifying rounds is is case of “so near, yet so far.” “We're really proud of the process, we stuck to it,” said Dickson afterwards. 

“We were both there mentally, and it's just very small mistake, very small margin, and like you know, we didn't really do anything massively wrong. It was just it was no way to get back into that race.” And following process, refining, testing, proving bit by bit is what they’ve been doing not just since their debut at the Tokyo Games but long before in their youth cycle.

Sailing isn’t just about the race or the tactics but, like any high performance sport all the preparation from Strength & Fitness to psychology to diet all combines but add on the complexitiies and additional rules of an equipment based sport for further tests.

After the strongest Sailing performance at an Olympic Games since Analise Murphy’s Silve rmedal eight years ago in Rio, the question of what next arises.

“We don't have a plan at the moment,” said Waddilove. “But my initial thoughts are - it's quite hard to leave an Olympic Games at fourth place. So yeah, we'll have to think about it. (the future).” Meanwhile, the Sailing continues with attention switching to the single-handers in the ILCA classes, men and women.

Carlow’s Finn Lynch will need a big day on Saturday when his favourite “muscular” conditions are forecast to try and lift him from 25th overall with three days of racing left.

Howth’s Eve McMahon is in a creditable 15th place for her Olympic debut but is similarly anticipating the big winds of Satuday. Could she over-perform for her first Games?

To be continued.