Olympic sailors up the pace

SAILING/News: For Ireland's Olympic sailors, January has traditionally marked a change of gear as their respective classes build pace.One of the largest multi-disclipline gatherings begins in Miami next week for three of these boats.

At the close of early registration, 211 boats representing 22 countries had signed up for the Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta. Seven sailing venues are at-the-ready to host the world's strongest sailors in the nine Olympic and two Paralympic classes.

A star-studded roster for the event includes the United States 2000 Star Olympic gold medallists Mark Reynolds and Magnus Liljedahl.

A battle of sorts within this fleet features triple Irish Olympian Mark Mansfield sailing with Killian Collins of the Royal Cork Yacht Club. Their campaign is starting to gather pace as part of the build-up to Athens 2004 but pressure is expected from Max Treacy and Anthony Shanks.

Meanwhile, Ireland's Maria Coleman will be in action at Maimi. The Baltimore single-hander has maintained her number two world ranking since last April and is one of Ireland's highest placed athletes of any sport. She is using Miami to finalise a number of rig combinations before finalising her preferences ahead of an intensive series of regattas later this year.

Other Olympic classes have a higher than 'normal' level of interest as the national squad becomes progressively more structured.

At this point in the last Olympic buildup just two sailors had commenced full-time campaigns. Now in 2002, all but three sailors are full-time with the remainder expected to start after third-level exams later this year.