John Twomey will race in a record 11th Paralympic Games following his qualification for the Rio Games at today's World Para Sailing Championships in Melbourne.
Twomey, Ian Costello and Austin O'Carroll have qualified for the Paralympic Games in Rio next year with a day to spare. The Sonar keelboat trio following an 11th and 12th place finish on the penultimate day of the Para World Sailing Championships in Melbourne and immediately booked their berth in Rio. They currently lie 9th overall at the Melbourne Championships.
Twomey said: 'We look forward to receiving coaching support from the Irish Sports Council and the ISA towards our bid to get on the podium in Rio. We have achieved what we came to Melbourne for which is qualification for Rio 2016. We still have a lot of hard work to do starting with the final race of this regatta tomorrow'
On the Sonar course today, the usually consistent Australian crew of Colin Harrison, Russell Boaden and Jonathan Harris really struggled to find any rhythm. They experienced problems yesterday, which were mainly due to really tough weather conditions and huge swings in wind direction. Today's racing was in stronger breeze, with lesser swings, but particularly in the second race, big seas were challenging for all crews on the windward legs. The Australians were 13th in race 9, their worst result so far, and 10th in race 10.
If conditions were hard, it certainly did not worry the British crew of John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Steve Thomas, who came away with second and third places from today's races to lead on the points score table with 31 points. With their worrying day today, the Australian crew loses its place at the head of the leader board but remains in a podium position with French team of Bruno Jourdren, Eric Flageul and Nicolas Vimont-Vicary.
"We struggled for boat speed all day today,” said Australian skipper Colin Harrison, "Boats that were behind us at the start were beating us to the windward mark.” Coach Grant Alderson will be trying to return his team to the routines that brought them success in the early part of the regatta.