Dún Laoghaire's Annalise and Katie from Bray started yesterday with the same dream, writes MIRIAM LORDin Weymouth
TWO EAST-COAST women – one catches the wind; the other knocks it out of people.
Dún Laoghaire’s Annalise Murphy and Bray’s Katie Taylor started out yesterday morning sharing the same dream – to win an Olympic medal for Ireland. Both had good reason to expect a positive outcome, but before the afternoon was out, one dream had died.
In front of a raucously rapturous crowd, Katie boxed her way to bronze (at least). But Annalise, despite a magnificent effort, sailed with distinction into the Olympic sunset.
Their east coast was in England yesterday: Murphy, sailing in the Laser Radial final off the Dorset coast and Katie gloving up in the ExCeL arena on London’s docklands.
Their moments of truth came within a thrilling 90 minutes of each other, handing the viewing public back home a heady lesson in the exhilarating highs and crushing lows of top-level sporting endeavour.
Annalise’s chance came first. The first-time Olympian struggled to catch the wind, but in the end, she couldn’t catch a break.
“She sailed a great race and she just didn’t get that little bit of luck that you sometimes need in sport,” said her coach afterwards, struggling to maintain his composure.
In the aftermath of what might have been, Annalise left the water and cried salt tears on dry land. She knew she had the winning of that race. A great sign for the future, because before her Olympic adventure, she would have been overjoyed with fourth place.
Who ever would have thought sailing so exciting? It isn’t much of a spectator sport. Apart from the yachting fraternity, its appeal is limited. Air-traffic controllers would probably love it – watching distant blobs slowly change course in a pattern few can appreciate or understand.
Take Sunday’s 100m athletics final: eight sprinters, nine seconds and everybody knows immediately why these men are paid the big bucks. Yesterday’s sailing: 10 boats, half an hour and the most excitement you’ll ever see in a lifejacket short of capsizing your own canoe.
But for all that, Annalise Murphy’s sea battle in Weymouth, under the eye of the White Horse carved into Osmington Hill, set Irish hearts thumping.
You don’t have to know the rules of competitive sailing to recognise a good race when you see it. Annalise signalled her intent by slithering past her rivals and curling beautifully around the first marker. But her position ebbed and flowed like the tide, surging forward, then falling right back, only to bully and finesse her way right up the rankings to second place.
The gold was out of sight, already on a fast boat to China. But the young Irishwoman seemed confident, working body and sail to what looked like the bronze.
The big Irish contingent on the hill beside Nothe Fort roared encouragement, as the destination of the final medal came down to a battle between Murphy and van Acker of Belgium. Van Acker took the high road and Murphy chose the low road and the Belgian crossed the finish line before her.
Fourth place.
So often, too often, our final resting place.
Heartbreaking for Annalise, who had done so much in the early rounds. No amount of being told how brilliant and courageous her performances had been could console her.
So she trudged up the slipway and stood by the barriers in the boatyard, dutifully doing interviews.
Everything about her showed a woman who had grown in confidence during her Olympic experience. Her hair: French plaited with green and gold ribbon. Her fingernails: painted in emerald glitter varnish. And her earrings: little shamrock studs.
Annalise knew she could deliver, and had dressed accordingly.
For it all to vanish was almost too much to bear.
“I lost out at the very end which is the worst – it wasn’t even that I was behind from the start . . . It’s just hard when you’re in the medals all week and you lose out on the very last day, that’s really hard.”
But sailing is a game for old salts as much as it is for the new additions to the fleet, like Murphy. She was reminded of all the great Olympic sailors who failed to win on their first outings and went on to greater things.
And she collected herself and looked to the future. “I’m only 22, so I’m the youngest and I’m in the top 10 . . . I’m going to work really hard over the next four years and hopefully, come Rio, I’ll be able to give this a better shot,” she smiled, as more tears splashed off the tarmac.
Her coach, James O’Callaghan, agreed.
“It’s almost like a rite of passage, but it’s a cruel rite of passage,” he remarked. “We’re all pretty devastated.”
In the last week, Annalise more that worked her passage to Rio. She knows she made some bad calls and it cost her.
“It’s just sport,” she mused. “I guess I was just at the wrong end of the four of us at the end of the race.” That is what happens, when you “miss out on a few gusts”. But, with the right wind, anything is possible. It might even have carried the noise down the Jurassic coast from the London docklands to Devon.
After the low ebb of Annalise missing out on her medal came the rising tide of Katie Taylor, majestic in her quarter-final
win over England’s Natasha Jonas.
The Irish fleet came in yesterday to support her. The noisiest, most passionate supporters the ExCeL Exhibition Centre has seen since these Olympic games began.
This east-coast girl now has the bronze, but she’s after gold.
Can anyone deny Katie with the wind on her back?