At the games (10-27 Aug):

We had planned to be a little early allowing time on the provided equipment ( as very little adjustment were allowed), time to acclimate to the humidity and heat. After a speedy stop on the arrival day to take hold of the gear, we made our way to the Olympic village to join with the rest of the team. Sophie was sharing room with the rowing representative whilst I shared with the tennis coach.

The first training day went off the a slow start as we had to get accointed with the various aspect of the "massive " village and it was to be after long wlaks around that we finally had a good grip on our new environment. The sailing venue was a good our away by shuttle bus but we still had time to get out for a short sail. That eveing we could set our daily routine having a better idea of various timings. The gym near the canteen was well placed and we could include a morning warm up and a recovery session each day. We maximised all the other training days by training with other teams and trying to learn as much as possible as we realised Sophie was definitely lacking specific time in the byteC2 compared to her opposition.

The opening ceremony was amazing; I had never seen such a show ( except maybe on TV) and it opened something more special than I have expected: the first ever youth Olympic games!

Another training day was allowed before we dived into our championship. The weather was pretty good! definitely better than anticipated with winds blowing at 5-10 kts every day. The powerful sail of the byte suited well the conditions and racing was entertaining. After a shaky start in the twenties, a couple of yellow flags (rule 42) and two capsizes on race 5, Sophie managed to dig herself out of the hole she was falling in and up her game towards early teens. towards the end, she managed to break into the top 10 with a well fought 8th. Points were close and she was ranked 17th out of the 32 selected girls after 11 races just before the medal race. Sophie's strength all week had been her superb speed downwind where she consistently gained places unfortunately shadowed at times by missing her opportunities upwind surely linked to a lack of time specifically in the byte. Indeed the edge of the course are often the place to be, especially in the second half of most beats and Sophie finds difficult to push the sides staying conservatively in the middle. If this is often a winning strategy, it was not to be the case in Singapore!

Sophie's Interviewed by Steven Martin (OCI) after 8 races (courtesy of Olympic council of Ireland) :

Medal race story

The medal race concluded the Youth Olympic Games 2010. The peculiarity of this medal race is that everyone was still racing instead of the traditional top 10 and the fact it was not discardable added up a little bit of pressure.
Sophie was fired up in the morning and determined to do well having reviewed all 11 races and learnt her lessons from them. After a short postponement, the breeze eventually picked up to a lovely 5-7 kts. Sophie was off a good start in the middle of the line but fell rapidly into the leebow of a boat forcing her to tack onto a header. Off phase for a while she fell right back. Her second half of the beat she remembered the lessons of the initial few days and picked the lifted tack towards the lay line. Finding clear air she made her way back up to 17th at the first windward. No gaps had really opened in the fleet and the downwind speed she had shown on previous races was giving a lot of hope for a come back in the spectators stand. She did not disappoint and a superb display of speed and placement climbed her into 5th by the bottom gate. Unfortunately some specifics of the Byte CII caught up with her when she did not notice the mainsheet traveller had moved too far to leeward opening her leech way too much making her loose a lot of a pointing ability. This issue forced her onto shaky decisions and she dropped back to 15th by the second windward. But Sophie was not to give up without a fight and she closed the gap on the group ahead to snatch the inside lane before the 3 boats length rounding the gate in 10th making a further two places on the reach getting her positioning and angles perfectly right.
She took 8th on the line at the Youth Olympics medal race to end her event on very positive note!

Sophie caught right up to the favourites in the second half of the event but unfortunately could not overcome the points dropped on the initial few races. She settled with 17th overall but with a firm envy to experience the Olympics again at senior level. Rio 2016 maybe?

For the first ever youth olympic games, the podium was all European sailors in the byte C2 girls, with Austria, Nederland and Germany collecting honours.

link to results

08/08/2010: Sophie Murphy has qualified Ireland in the Byte C2 class last december and I have been appointed to be her coach for the games. Sophie has worked very hard all spring and summer improving her skills on a daily base. Last week was the last couple of trainings based in Ireland and they are promising. Tomorrow we are flying to Singapore. I will try to keep an update on the progress ( either on my facebook, either on this website).