SAILING:DÚN LAOGHAIRE'S Annalise Murphy has produced Ireland's first top-10 result at an Olympic class world championships in six years to provide a much-needed boost to Irish sailing chances in London 2012.
Yesterday’s eighth-place result at the 87-boat women’s Laser Radial World Championships in Japan was secured in a fleet that included American Olympic gold medallist Anna Tunnicliffe and Chinese bronze medalist Lijia Xu.
The championship was won by Finland’s Sari Multala who counted five race wins in her scores, allowing her to sit out the final race.
The 21-year-old National Yacht Club sailor improved throughout the 12-race series, where individual scores included a second placing, moving the UCD mathematics student from 15th to 10th in the penultimate days sailing in Karatsu.
In spite of snagging her centerboard with weed and floating sticks in the final race that dropped her seven places, Murphy ended the series with a fourth and a 14th to move up the scoreboard again to eighth overall.
The last top-10 result Olympic result was David Burrows’s third overall at the Finn Gold Cup in 2003 but in the context of Irish women’s sailing results the previous best was seven years ago when Maria Coleman scored seventh in the Europe dinghy world championships in 2002.
Also competing in Japan were Belfast’s Tiffany Brien in 35th and Annalise’s sister Claudine who finished 14th in the silver fleet.
Laser Radial World Championships, Japan: Gold Fleet – 44 boats: 1st Fin Sari Multala: 8th Murphy Annalise; 35th Tiffany Brien (Ire). Silver Fleet – 43 boats: 1st Aus Ashley Stoddart; 14th Claudine Murphy (Ire).
