Sailing: From an inauspicious Gold Cup beginning to third overall at the penultimate stage, David Burrows performance this week in Rio de Janeiro led Irish team officials to concede last night that the three-way Finn trial for Irish Olympic nomination is only going "one way".
An opening-race nightmare on Monday saw the Malahide sailor rafted up on the outside of 33 boats in near windless conditions.
It was an incident that did not promise success, but, as the wind settled in this week on Guanabara Bay, Burrows (24) posted a string of consistent results to count 7, 11, 9, 7, 5, 7 to put him only a single point behind second overall Mateusz Kusznierewicz of Poland with just two races to go for the 54-boat fleet.
Worryingly for Burrows, however, is that after seven races sailed he has the highest discard of any the top five. A bad last race today will almost certainly be a trap door out of the medals.
Canada's Richard Clarke is nine points behind and a further six could overhaul the Dubliner.
Leader Britain's Ben Ainslie is aiming to make Finn history and become only the second sailor to win the Gold Cup in three consecutive years.
Burrows will have a number of objectives going into this morning's last race. Firstly any improvement on his previous best Gold Cup performance of seventh will be a massive boost just eight months before Athens.
Equally important though will be the mortal blow that a top-10 placing will inflict on the other two contenders for the Irish slot. Dun Laoghaire triallist Aaron O'Grady currently leads in the world rankings that forms the basis of the Irish Olympic selection mechanism, but post-Rio rankings will cause a significant shake-up.
With modest chances of improvement today O'Grady lies in 37th place and Baltimore's Youen Jacob in 39th.
The final standings can be expected around 9 p.m. Irish time tonight on: www.atividade.com.
At home, in a further boost for dinghy sailing, Noel Butler and Stephen Campion were presented with the Cork Dry Gin Irish Sailor of the Year Award by Britain's Princess Anne on Tuesday.
The ceremony recognised 20 individual achievements, a remarkable season on home and foreign waters, in which Irish crews picked up World and European titles.
It was the fairytale ending to last year's World Championship when comparative novices Butler and Campion lifted the Laser II World trophy that swayed the judges.
