Irish pair open with win

A results downturn besetting the Olympic sailing team in the opening stages of their 2000 Australian campaigns this week is no cause for concern, according to team manager, Bill O'Hara.

In what is becoming a "do or die" situation for Ireland's sole 470 campaigners, Tom Fitzpatrick and David McHugh opened their 2000 season with their first race win at a Grade One event.

The Howth-Wicklow pairing had over a minute lead over Japan's top ranked Hamazaki and Miyai, and by the half-way stage of the Sail Melbourne regatta on Wednesday, they were placed sixth overall and had their best chance yet of achieving an Olympic qualifying result.

By yesterday, however, they had slipped to 11th overall on 60 points and now need results in today's two races similar to their opening race performance if they are to make their first qualifying result.

The pair, in a partnership that has lasted for six years, have to achieve two Olympic qualifying results and a Nation qualifying result over the next six regattas.

Finn single-hander David Burrows is counting an 18th out of 24 boats after eight rounds in the Sail Melbourne regatta that has seen the 1999 European Junior Champion, Stefan de Vries from the Netherlands, realise the best Finn results of his life.

After winning the first race of the day (the first of his Finn career), followed by a second, then an eighth, Vries briefly claimed the lead before Britain's Ian Percy took over at the top of the leader board on 34 points, three points ahead of Poland's Matthies Kusznierewicz. Burrows has 119 points.

Shifting winds have thus far not suited Malahide's Burrows who, although ranked in the world top 10, is in the bottom quarter of the 24-boat fleet.

The poorish performances, however, are due to a range of circumstances and are merely a blip in an otherwise steady progress towards Sydney, O'Hara said yesterday.

The death of Jon Lasenby's father over Christmas has meant a late return for the single-hander to the Laser circuit. He is lying 21st from a fleet of 48-boats and is still chasing his final qualification result for Sydney. It is a frustrating situation for the single-hander who secured Ireland's place on the Laser start-line over a year ago but who has, so far, failed to regain this form.

In Brazil, Maria Coleman, normally a most consistent performer, has opened her World championship account with a 25th and 12th placing in a 107boat fleet for 35th overall, in the 11-race series.

Coleman, who is billed by the ISA as one of Ireland's leading female athletes, boasted a consistent record of not finishing lower than 10th in any of her last 22 races prior to her arrival in Brazil.

A low performance in the preworld championships by the Baltimore sailor was put down to gear testing, but O'Hara admitted his disappointment at her opening results yesterday.

In the US, Mark Mansfield's Eagle Star-backed Star keelboat campaign, based in Florida, has completed two practice regattas at the Coral Reef Yacht Club and will compete, in a new boat, at the 70-boat Miami Olympic Classes Regatta, a Grade One ISAF event, in 10 days, followed by the 120-boat Bacardi Cup at the same venue in March.