Olympic ILCA 7 Qualifier Finn Lynch is Sailor of the Month (Olympic) for August

1st September 2023

The National Yacht Club's Finn Lynch secured Ireland's berth at the Paris Olympics in the ILCA 7 class this afternoon at the Sailing World Championships at The Hague Credit: Sailing Energy

Finn Lynch can add nation qualifying for the Paris Olympics 2024 to his many ILCA 7 achievements to date, including a world silver medal from 2021.

In a nerve-jangling conclusion to the Gold fleet series in the Men's single-handed event at the Allianz Sailing World Championships in The Hague on 19th August 2023, the National Yacht Club ace secured one of the last Paris 2024 Olympics places for Ireland available in The Netherlands.

Lynch sailed out into the final two races for his event, needing only to deliver two safe results to maintain or improve on 14th place by nation. A total of 16 countries have qualified for the Men single-handed events, including Ireland.

After crossing the finishing line, he sailed ashore under the impression that he had missed qualification when he had actually managed to place 15th by nation and 23rd overall.

Elated with the outcome, he described qualifying Ireland for Paris 2024 as a "monkey off my back" and will now focus fully on preparations for the Olympics and selection for the national squad.

Published in Sailor of the Month, Laser, National YC

Published in Sailor of the Month

Tagged under

About The Author

Afloat.ie Team

Email The Author

Afloat.ie is Ireland's dedicated marine journalism team.

Have you got a story for our reporters? Email us here.

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven’t put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full–time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.