An edge of seat finale saw Ireland’s Eve McMahon win gold at the Princess Sofia Regatta in Mallorca on Saturday afternoon, the first such Irish win at the venue in 10 years.
Having dominated her record 148-boat women’s one-person dinghy event all week, the Howth sailor was a very strong contender for a podium result.
However, as always with sailing, nothing is ever fully assured.
On Friday, at the conclusion of the elimination round to decide the top 10 sailors to go into the finals, her friend, Britain’s Daisy Collingridge, pulled a surprise match-racing move that dropped McMahon into second overall.
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It was a tactic normally used to decide a delicately balanced final race leaderboard.
Saturday’s opening race saw the Irish and British sailors “dial-up” on the starting line, a type of jousting for best starting place while covering each other.
The pair seemed content to pace each other during the short, 20-minute race, with Collingridge finishing one place ahead, extending her lead to six points.
At this stage, McMahon was assured of the silver medal but wasn’t ready to concede.
In the second and last final race, the Irish sailor didn’t need to match race her rival as pure boat speed saw her pull away to the front of the pack and she managed to keep enough boats between her and Collingridge.
The new format finals meant the race was too short for the British sailor to have any options to recover and minutes later they were in an emotional embrace on the finishing line with just a single point in the difference of their scores.
“When I crossed the finishing line I couldn’t believe it,” McMahon said after coming ashore in C’an Pastilla. “I had to pull a great race out of the bag and I just went on the hunt.”
It was a point echoed by her coach, Slovenian double Olympic medallist Vasilij Zbogar, who didn’t sleep the night before because of the multiple permutations of strategy open for the final day.
“She has this instinct of fighting all the time,” he said. “Give her a task and she executes that task and goes to the next task.”
The complexity of battling nine other contenders meant that actual sailing skills were secondary to the mental game in play, often leaving the final result unknown until the boats have finished.
“I sail to attack and I sail to win; it’s great to get any medal but gold is always what you want at the end of the day,” said McMahon. “The match-race was unexpected yesterday but I think it almost did her worse than it did to me because I knew she [had] laid her cards out on the table the day before.”
The Princess Sofia regatta is the first major Olympic classes event of the year and features over 800 boats and around 1,400 athletes.
Ireland last won a gold here in 2016 in the lead-up to the Rio Olympics when Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern won the 49er men’s skiff event.
“It’s incredible for Irish sailing, we’re such a small country and there aren’t that many [Irish] sailors here but we’re definitely a mighty country and I’m proud to be representing Ireland,” said McMahon.
Collingridge was waiting for McMahon on the beach when the new gold medallist arrived ashore and helped drag her ILCA 6 dinghy back to be washed down ahead of the next event, the French Olympic Week in Hyeres later this month.
“We’re great friends but we knew that out on the water it’s war and we wouldn’t take things personally,” said McMahon. “Overall, I’m very happy with my racing but there’s obviously little things I take from each race so we’ll debrief fully and just enjoy the moment for as long as it lasts.”
Meanwhile, a reality check follows next week when McMahon returns to her studies at UCD where she has missed a month of lectures.
