Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern officially qualified Ireland for the 2012 Olympics in the 49er sailing discipline yesterday after only three days of racing at the World Championships in Perth, Australia.
A tremendous start to the competition saw the duo lie in tenth place overall after eight races.
The 67-boat fleet was then split into Gold and Silver fleets with the top twenty-five boats entering the Gold fleet. With only fourteen nations represented it became impossible for Seaton and McGovern to fall outside the allotted fourteen spots available for London thus securing their place on the start line at Weymouth next summer.
“It’s feels great, there’s been a lot of hard work put in over the last three or four years just to get ready for this event. We had a plan when we came out here to the championships to try and get the qualification over as quickly as we could so we could have the next few months to get prepared for the Olympics and we’re happy to have gotten that over with,” explained 23 year-old Seaton from Carrick.
McGovern, 27, from Bangor was in his second Olympics campaign after failing to make it to Beijing with his brother Russell four years ago.
“I’m feeling pretty good right now because we weren’t sure there for a while and as good as we’ve been sailing this week I was still feeling nervous inside because I was saying to Ryan that four years ago it was the most disappointing day of my life when we didn’t qualify so I was afraid to let myself believe it was definite until it was confirmed and we’re over the moon.”
The pair had gotten off to a terrific start on Monday with 2nd, 4th and 10th place finishes in the opening three races and followed that up with a 7th, 11th and 12th on Tuesday.
They then had their best day so far on the water yesterday, placing 5th in both races.
McGovern continued, “I knew we were right there in the results it was just a matter of how many nations made it into the Gold fleet and there were fifteen but included the British who qualify automatically for the Games as hosts so that’s when we definitely knew.”
ISA Performance Director, James O’Callaghan remarked, "It’s a brilliant result for the guys, to be in 6th nation position and to have secure Olympic qualification at this stage is something special".
The duo were actually brought together at the Sports Institute of Northern Ireland and the first time they actually got into a boat together was six weeks before the world championships in April 2009.
For two and a half years now the pair have travelled the world competing for Ireland with this moment in mind.
Dr Shaun Ogle, Executive Director of Sports Institute Northern Ireland praised their performance.
“Everyone at SINI is delighted for Ryan and Matt, they have put a huge amount of work into this Olympic campaign and their qualification has been years in the making. The pair work incredibly hard, both on and off the water and have demonstrated the dedication and skill needed to qualify for the Games. All the team at SINI wishes Ryan and Matt all the best with the rest of the World Championships this week and beyond in 2012.”
Racing will continue through to Saturday with the top 10 teams then continuing on to the medal race on Sunday.
McGovern added, “That’s our goal now is to make the top ten and we still have a lot of work to do, we don’t want to be watching the medal race. Now we can go out there and sail confidently and now that one part of the job is complete we can put that on the back burner and concentrate on finishing the regatta strongly"
