Going into the seventh race of the event O’Leary and Goodbody were winning the regatta. Their second place finish launched them four points ahead of 8 time World Champion and multiple Olympic Medallist Robert Scheidt and his crew Bruno Prada who had an OCS in the this race. George Szabo and Rick Peters,USA pulled ahead of the Swiss Flavio Marazzi and Enrico de Maria allowing Xavier Rohort and Alexis Pierre Ponsot, FRA to close the gap but were in a distant fifth place going into the final race.
For the eighth and final race the waves were steeper and there were more white caps in 15 to 18 knots of breeze. The same teams dominated the top of the fleet during thesecond race of the day and the deciding race of the regatta. The situation pertained that Szabo/Paters led around the slightly favoured right gate and Scheidt/Prada were giving it their all to grind through the fleet, yet rounded the left gate in third overall. Rohort/Ponsot rounded in second with O’Leary/Goodbody in fourth.
Racing stayed tight all the way through to the end. Scheidt/Prada surged across the line in first place, Rohort/Ponsot won the day with their second place finish and O’Leary/Goodbody nipped out Szabo/Peters to finish third and this was enough to give the Irish the overall win of the event by two points.
O’Leary commented on the Irish victory: “We are coming along. All the work in the gym is starting to pay off and it is nice to sail at the same weight as everyone else”.
Goodbody has also been working out at gaining muscle weight for the pair’s Star campaign.
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