Robbie setting his sights on a place at Tokyo Olympics

Robbie setting his sights on a place at Tokyo Olympics

1 February 2017

A LOCAL sailor is starting on a voyage which he hopes will end in Olympic glory in three years’ time.

Robbie Gilmore, from Strangford Lough Yacht Club, has teamed up with Matt McGovern in a bid to represent Ireland in the 49er fleet at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

A former champion youth sailor, Gilmore comes with plenty of pedigree — a fact which is not lost on McGovern, who is from Ballyholme Yacht Club in Bangor and represented Ireland in the 49er class at the 2016 Rio Olympics. 

The duo have been training hard and have set their sights high. “We have been doing a lot of hours on the water focusing mainly on boat handling skills as this is a massive part of 49er racing,” says McGovern.  

“As well as this we have been working on getting plenty of gym time to give us a good fitness platform from which to train and race. We are both pretty similar people in our approach, so we have gotten on top of that really quickly.

“We are working much more on boat handling and building the hours up in the area at home to get it perfect.

“Robbie has also brought some ‘out of the box thinking’ to our training plans that I think are going to help us progress at a great rate.”

The pair will be competing at a number of warm-up regattas such as Andalusian Week in Cadiz in February, the UK Ranker event in Weymouth in May, Kiel Week in Germany in June, the Europeans in Kiel in July and the Worlds in Porto, Portugal, in August.