There may be no similarity whatsoever between kicking a winning drop goal against South Africa and sailing the Olympic regatta in a double-handed skiff, still Seán Waddilove can take some inspiration perhaps from his former classmate Ciarán Frawley as his preparations continue this week in France.
“I was in the same class as him all the way up to sixth year, and actually used to walk to school with him as well,” Waddilove says of Frawley, both attending Skerries Community College in north county Dublin before taking a different direction in their ultimate sporting pursuits.
“And I played rugby as well all the way up to SCT in sixth year. But I don’t think you could compare myself and Ciarán. He was definitely the better player!
“But there’s myself from Skerries, and also in the Rugby Sevens there’s Hugo Lennox, who qualified for Tokyo as well. So this is his second Olympics too. Skerries is a relatively small town, and to have two Olympians for the second time is unbelievable.”
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Along with team-mate Robert Dickson, from nearby Sutton, Waddilove is in the double-handed skiff (also known as the 49er), one of the three Irish boats preparing for the Games at the Olympic sailing venue in Marseille, along with Eve McMahon and Finn Lynch in ILCA 6/ILCA 7 (the one-person dinghy formerly branded the Laser Radial/Standard for women/men).
Three years on from the delayed Tokyo Games, Waddilove (27) and Dickson (26) make no secret of the fact things didn’t go to plan on their Olympic debut. They’ve been sailing together since their early teens, still nothing prepared them for the two-race disqualification after their trapeze harness, which secures them to their boat, came in as overweight by a mere 90 grams. The permitted weight is 2kg.
They had risen to seventh overall by that halfway stage, then dropped back to 13th. Although they still won their final race, they missed out on the medal showdown race.
“Looking back, initially we weren’t the favourites to qualify in the first place,” Dickson says of their Tokyo experience. “So getting to go felt like a bonus just in itself. And then the performance, we sailed really well, we won two races, and then it was obviously overshadowed a little bit by the disqualification for the harness issue.
“There is just a weight limit on the harness. There’s a test where they dunk it in water and hang it for one minute. If it’s over a certain weight at the end of the minute, then it’s against the rules.
“What happened basically was, we had tested the harnesses, but it was a few months beforehand. It has a hydrophobic layer, so basically they were soaking up more water, and it ended up 90 grams too heavy. So very, very little, but that was enough, and they disqualified us from two races because of it.”
Waddilove tries to look back on the lighter side: “It’s funny . . . well it’s not that funny. Since Tokyo they’ve increased the weight to 2.4kg.”
What is certain is that experience will stand to them in Marseille, home to the Irish Sailing squad for much of the winter. Ten years ago, Waddilove and Dickson also spent their transition year in La Rochelle, staying at a boarding school during the week and a host family at weekends.
“I think it made a big difference in our sailing careers,” says Waddilove. “We went from just sailing two days a week, on the weekend, to actually being able to sail three or four days a week, and get into a good routine of solid fitness training and more hours on the water.”
The performance breakthrough then came in 2018, when they won gold in the World Juniors. Both now sail out of Howth Yacht Club, and see their Olympic ambitions as entirely a team effort.
“We probably spend more time together than we do with our families,” says Waddilove, “and we train nearly every day together, so it’s always nice to have someone pushing you and you pushing them.”
Dickson agrees: “I think a good balance is good, especially the personalities inside the boat. Whenever you’re communicating together a lot, it’s good to get different perspectives as well.
“So I definitely see it as a team. It’s individual for Lasers and that, but we see it as a team. We work together. One of us can’t win. It’s both of us in the boat. We win and we lose together.”
Assuming their can steer clear of any disqualifications this time, the least of their ambitions will be to make the medal race, decided between the top 10 boats from the previous 12 races over four days.
“We’re pretty confident that we can go and do a good performance,” says Dickson “We’ve been to Marseille and we’ve sailed well in regattas in Marseille before. If we sail to the best of our ability, there’s no reason why a medal is out of reach.
“We’ll be aiming for it.”
