SAILING NEWS AND ANALYSIS:For all her race successes so far, Annalise Murphy's medal hopes are as dependant on avoiding bad races as they are on having good ones. DAVID O'BRIENreports

AFTER MANY false dawns, the prospect of a sailing medal from the Olympics may well be the talk of the nation but we’ll need a combination of strong winds and consistency in Weymouth if there are to be any bigger celebrations by Monday.

In particular, Irish team management are well aware of the threat of a closing pack on Dublin’s Annalise Murphy, the overall leader of the Laser Radial class.

In spite of four wins so far Annalise is contending with a strong showing by Belgian sailor Evi Van Acker, now just two points adrift of her in the 41-boat fleet.

Yesterday was a rest day for Murphy and with her team and coaches she used the time “to analyse and regroup” for today’s race seven and eight, what could be a crucial turning point in the week-long 10-race series before Monday’s medal race final.

The “regroup” comment followed a weaker performance on Wednesday when the breeze dropped and Ireland’s strong wind specialist counted an eighth and used her discard to throw out the 19th placing scored in race six.

There is no doubt about it the wind in Wednesday’s race six was all over the place. The top 10 in that race included three sailors (ISR, EST and GUA) who had previously only been near the back of the fleet. Five of the sailors leading overall, not just Murphy, had to use this race as their discard.

The task facing Murphy this morning is to reintroduce some of Monday and Tuesday’s consistency into her scoring.

In an overall regatta context, where a series of individual results count, the hard lesson is that it’s not only about having brilliant races, it’s also about avoiding bad ones. And in terms of difficulty, it’s the hardest nut to crack in an event that slowburns in different wind conditions over 10 days.

Take second place Van Ecker (3, 2, 3, (8), 1, 5), for example, who has narrowed the guage on Murphy by 10 points.

The Belgian champion has no score outside the top 10, after discarding an eighth. Neither does third place world champion Marit Boumeester of the Netherlands (6), 3, 4, 5, 6, 1), who discards a sixth place.

Team management haven’t said it directly but the uppermost concern for Murphy is for her to steer clear of a repeat performance of the Perth world Championships in December.

Sixth in her 102-boat fleet eight months ago was far from a disaster in Australia. In fact it was a top result for Murphy and also a personal best and an Olympic qualification result.

But now the stakes are so much higher and Murphy’s performance here this week has made Ireland’s first sailing medal in over 30 years look tantalisingly close at this half way stage.

In Perth, Murphy also won four races, more than any other sailor in her fleet. Her fleet results then were: 30 1, 2, 1, 4 (37) 1, 7, 4, 1, 1.

The single-hander showed the depth of her ambition when she left the Australian venue disappointed at not having won a medal, defeated by an inconsistent score-sheet.

Her average position, excluding discard, was seventh. If she had scored seventh in her two worst races, she would have won the regatta by five points. Instead a couple of bad results kept her sixth overall.

While early weather predictions for Weymouth indicated lighter winds, happily now for the Ireland entry it looks like today will be just as windy as the races so far and maybe more.

Murphy will relish the prospect of a return to the big winds she excels in and the posting of four more consistent results on her epic voyage in search of gold.