Rob Dickson cut a dejected figure as he walked across the deserted dinghy park at the Roucas Blanc Marina in Marseille on Friday afternoon.
Occasional handshakes and fist-bumps from other athletes and coaches not at sea in events made the walk that bit longer until he reached the sanctuary of the Irish team tent where support staff were on hand to help make sense of it all.
Behind him was the launching beach for the medal race finalists and the noise of the crowd carried over the low hill and official buildings that separated him from the pain of missing out on an Olympic medal.
The contrast was stark, sailing ashore to park alongside the Spanish gold medal winners, themselves soaked from the traditional jumping off their boat, an act of fun that breaks the tension of years waiting for that moment.
Olympics: Complete day-by-day guide to the Irish athletes in action in Paris
Olympics at a glance: How all the Irish athletes fared on Day 7
Ireland’s mixed relay team miss out on Olympic final as the heat and pace rises in Paris
Olympics Day 7 live updates: Rowers Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy win gold; mixed relay team miss out on final
On the beach, Dickson and his sailing partner Sean Waddilove had to de-rig beside the celebrating Spaniards. Their only solace was the throng of Ireland supporters at the barrier a few metres away where family and friends were on hand to offer comfort and admiration.
After all, fourth place or “the leather medal” is the hardest result to accept, not least because of their impressive run of finishing each day of the fleet series in second overall.
A medal of some colour was surely on the cards. So what happened?
The medal race final is designed not only as a final test of skill in a shortened format optimal for television. Originally scheduled for Thursday, the wind simply wouldn’t play ball and the final was rightly deferred
Friday offered more promising conditions and the women’s skiff event went off without a hitch. The men’s event went into countdown to the start of the short two-lap race.
The usual jockeying for optimal position saw Ireland joust with the Croatian crew, both aiming to avoid contact but still get a place on the starting-line.
As with every sailing race, the aim is to be front-row when the start signal goes as “clear air” means the best boatspeed and starting behind means “dirty air” from the turbulence off the sails ahead.
At one minute to go, most of the boats committed to their positions and prepared to increase speed to hit the starting line exactly on time.
As the starting horn sounded, the race committee detected several boats were over early and sounded the “individual recall” signal.
It is one of the curious aspects of sailing that technology is not used to alert competitors if they have infringed at the start. After all, pushing the rules to the maximum is an imperfect art but essential in high-stakes, high-performance sport. The race committee does not identify the boats, leaving the individual responsibility to the sailors to manage themselves.
Three boats turned back, accepting that they had likely infringed with Dickson and Waddilove included. A fourth boat, Croatia, did not but after two minutes the umpires informed them they had made a false start and they withdrew from the race.
After recrossing the starting-line, the Irish crew thus exonerated themselves but then sailed to the right hand side of the course and started their pursuit of the leaders.
The silver medal was now clearly in doubt but the bronze was in play, provided they could reel in at least two places. But the damage was done, the fleet too far away and the right hand side of the course had less favourable wind.
Dickson and Waddilove crossed in ninth place, finishing fourth overall and three points shy of the bronze medal.
They are now double-Olympians, matching where Spain’s Diego Botin le Chever and Florian Trittel Paul were in Tokyo. The Spanish duo only now, at their third attempt, claimed gold in a well deserved win.
