Eve McMahon wins Gold hat-trick for Ireland
by Rachel Fallon-Langdon 31 Jul 2022 08:11 BST
Irish sailor Eve McMahon has delivered a dream outcome to her 2022 season by retaining her youth world championship title in Houston, Texas tonight after delivering more race wins on the final day of the series.
Competing in the single-handed ILCA 6 class (formerly known as the Laser Radial), the Howth Yacht Club sailor has added this second world title to Gold medals at the Youth Sailing World Championships in the Netherlands and the Youth ILCA6 European Championships in Greece.
After weather halted the event schedule on Friday, three races were sailed on Saturday with multiple wins for the Irish sailor who has comprehensively won the championship.
The 18-year old sailor set a pre-season goal of 'three from three' title wins and also managed to sit her Leaving Certificate school exams.
In 30 races across all three events, McMahon finished in the top three places in all but five races, averaging around third place as an indication of impressive consistency.
By way of warm-up, earlier in the season she won the Irish Sailing Youth National Championships as she tried to make up for lost competition time due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
McMahon opened the qualification round in Texas by laying down an unprecedented set of six straight wins. In the Gold fleet final series, she took podium places that enabled to her to maintain a good lead over her nearest challengers.
Germany's Linda Hendel and Croatia's Tea Peteh both proved tough adversaries as the front-runners in the 50-boat fleet all showed form that didn't give the Irish sailor an easy contest.
"Eve's determination, resilience and ambition to pull off this incredible triumvirate of major regatta victories is quite outstanding," commented James O'Callaghan, Irish Sailing's Performance Director. "Eve's Mum, Dad and brothers have been a big part of her success not forgetting the club support and efforts of multiple coaches in the Irish Sailing programme. It's a day all Irish sailors can be proud of."
A home-coming welcome is planned for Dublin Airport on Monday morning (1 August) for the full Irish team when they return from Texas after an intense round of regattas.
Also returning from Texas on Monday will be coach Liam Glynn with Sophie Kilmartin, Fiachra McDonnell, Rocco Wright, Oisin Hughes and Luke Turvey.
Wright was recently part of Ireland double-Gold victory at the Youth Worlds along with McMahon when - on his first major regatta since leaving the junior Optimist class - he won the male single-handed Youth Sailing World Championship in the ILCA6 class.
Both sailors will have an eye toward the Irish Sailing Senior Squad and their recent performances mark them as future Olympic contenders.