Irish sailor Eve McMahon secures Olympic qualification

Howth’s Eve McMahon completed a hat-trick of Irish sailing qualification places for the Paris Olympics by securing a place in the women’s single dinghy event from this week’s ILCA6 World Championships in Argentina.

Seven nation places for next summer’s games were decided from off Mar del Plata with the Irish sailor taking the second of these in a carefully managed series to ensure qualification.

Her single final race on Wednesday saw her place second on the water, but the job had been done the day before with a race to spare when the 19-year-old became mathematically unbeatable for a nation place. In the end, she finished the 103-strong event in 20th overall.

It was still a taste of what is to follow as acknowledged by Rory Fitzpatrick, Irish Sailing’s head coach, who previously helped Annalise Murphy achieve her silver medal success at Rio 2016.

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“Eve is definitely capable of better performances in terms of the world championships, but to secure qualification she’s had to start races very conservatively just to give herself an advantage,” he said.

The outcome of the past six days reflects the concentrated effort to get all three disciplines that Irish Sailing had targeted for Paris to the event itself.

As the sole candidate for her event, McMahon will be automatically nominated to the Olympic Federation of Ireland for her place in Team Ireland. The other two disciplines face selection trials in the coming months.

In August of 2023, Rio 2016 veteran Finn Lynch was the first senior athlete to secure nation qualification for the men’s single-handed event. In November, Robert Dickson and Seán Waddilove qualified Ireland for the men’s skiff event.

McMahon becomes the youngest Irish sailor to qualify for the Olympics, taking over from Finn Lynch, who was the youngest sailor at Rio 2016.

She has been the top performer for her age since was 13, according to Ballyholme Yacht Club’s Bill O’Hara, a veteran of eight Olympics – twice as competitor, twice as judge and four times as team support.

He cautions against placing unfair expectations on her 19-year-old shoulders despite her stellar career at junior and youth level on the international stage.

“Her target would always be to win a medal but realistically, winning [a] place in the medal race final [top 10] would be a great result for her first games,” said O’Hara. “I see her as a real prospect for LA 2028 but for now, she still needs more experience with the senior women.”

She is well-placed to gain that experience too. Denmark’s Anne-Marie Rindom won the world championship in Argentina this week with a race to spare and is no stranger to the Irish teenager. A best sailing friend to Murphy, McMahon was introduced to the Danish sailor four years ago and has trained with her regularly.

Now free of pressure to qualify the nation, McMahon can set her sights on a mixture of a few key international regattas plus venue familiarisation at the Olympic venue in Marseilles where the Irish Sailing Foundation was one of a handful of nations to establish a training base two years ago.

Such familiarisation was the key to Murphy’s silver medal in 2016, though in the lead-up to the Rio Games, her results were far from stellar as she appeared to struggle in the conditions on Guanabara Bay.

Until the opening race.

Then, the Rathfarnham sailor stunned her doubters by leading the opening race in form that was reminiscent of her opening races of London 2012, albeit in much lighter winds in Brazil.

As a coach and mentor to McMahon and many other younger sailors, male and female, it remains to be seen how the “Annalise effect” comes to fruition over the coming Olympic cycles.