Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove have secured their place in the Gold Fleet at the 49er European Championships in Eckernforde, Germany, after finishing the qualifying series sixth among the European crews.<\/p>\n
The Irish Olympians produced moments of brilliance across the opening three days of racing, including two race wins, to comfortably advance to the championship fleet and put themselves in a strong position ahead of the Elimination Series.<\/p>\n
After two days dominated by strong winds, conditions changed dramatically on the final day of qualifying. A high-pressure system brought lighter but highly challenging breezes, testing sailors’ tactical decision-making and boat handling in the shifty conditions.<\/p>\n
Dickson and Waddilove completed two races before the breeze became too light to continue. They opened their day with an impressive third-place finish, though their second race proved trickier with a mistake on the first downwind leg leaving them mid-fleet and crossing the line in 15th.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re happy to move into Gold Fleet in a strong position,” 49er coach Benjamin Bildstein said.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re at the halfway point of the regatta now and this is where the real racing begins. The leaderboard is incredibly tight, so everything is still to play for.”<\/p>\n
The Olympians now move into two days of Gold Fleet racing in the Elimination Series before Sunday\u2019s Medal Series, with the 49er fleet currently led by Britain\u2019s James Grummett and Rhos Hawes.<\/p>\n
France\u2019s Erwan Fischer and Cl\u00e9ment P\u00e9quin have moved into second after being awarded redress following a successful protest against the Dutch team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove have secured their place in the Gold Fleet at the 49er European Championships…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-542064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}