`Carding' plan gives sailors lift

The Irish Sailing Association has warmly welcomed the new international carding scheme to fund Ireland's elite sports men and women announced on Wednesday by the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Dr McDaid. For the first time Irish sailors will be placed on an equal footing with competitors from other sports in the eyes of government and national bodies.

At the higher end of the scheme, the `world' class is divided into four categories based on the highest of three factors: past Olympic results, World Championship result, and world ranking according to the official international governing body for a particular sport. The placings and categories are: 1-3 - world class one; 4-8 - world class two; 9-16 - world class three; 17-30 - world class four.

Maria Coleman, who is campaigning for the Europe single-handed class for Sydney 2000, meets the second grade while John Driscoll (Finn) is in the third grade. Although his Olympic intentions are uncertain at present, Marshall King, who helmed the Irish Soling keelboat entry at the Savannah Olympic Regatta in 1996, also qualifies for the third grade as would Cork's Olympic veteran Mark Mansfield if his widely-rumoured Star campaign gets underway.

The announcement of the new funding will also be of interest to this year's Irish Optimist teams that were decided last weekend; under the scheme's `junior' category it is thought that the top five boats will also be eligible for some support.

Many of the leading Irish and international sailors from recent Olympic regattas progressed through this class early in their sailing careers and, interestingly, rarely reached the top three but were always to be found in the top 20 of a particular year's World Championship.

Irish hopes are stronger again this year for the `Oppie' Worlds, which will be held in late July at Troia in Portugal, following an encouraging performance at the O'Neill's Easter Regatta at Brassemjer in Holland where nine Irish boats made the Gold fleet - a first even for one Irish boat at this annual event. Three selection trials in addition to a pre-qualifying series determined the team with three sailors - East Antrim's Lorcan Lennon, Conor McGonagle of Skerries and Dylan Gannon from Howth - all setting a particularly strong pace by the final weekend.

Margins at the top end were very tight and the leading boats were closely followed by Strangford's Keir Clarke and Nicholas O'Leary of the Royal Cork YC, who also joined the five-boat Worlds' team. In turn, only 1.5 points separated the next five boats, who can look forward to competing as the national team for the class European Championships in Croatia immediately following the World series.

The top 25 ranked Optimist sailors, based on last season's national and regional championships automatically qualified for the Irish trials while the remainder of the 50boat trials fleet were the top of the earlier pre-qualifiers in which 84 boats sought selection.