Ireland's medal hopes at the 49er World Championships in Sardinia are over after failing to reach the gold fleet final series.
Rob Dickson and Sean Waddilove will contest the silver fleet series over two days beginning on Friday after their 40th place overall was well short of the top 25 boat cut-off.
The Dublin pair did deliver two top results today but a 22nd place hurt their chances.
However even with these scores, they would have fallen short to make the top 25.
They needed to score all top five places to have a chance but the nearest they had to that since Tuesday was their impressive win of the opening race.
The result will be a bitter blow to their hopes for the LA 2028 Olympics, considering the effort of training in recent months delivered clear improvements that didn't translate into better finishing places.
The crew and coach Matt McGovern will hold a detailed review following the championships with outside experts expected to contribute to the analysis.
Meanwhile, after Wednesday's unexpected stellar day for Ben O'Shaughnessy and Ethan Spain when they scored a race win plus a second and 12th places, the reality of the world championships calibre fleet returned and they had three bottom half results for the day.
Although never expected to achieve gold fleet on their first senior world championship outing, they did come tantalisingly close and were ahead of double Olympians Dickson and Waddilove.
However, the Cork and Dublin pairing will also continue racing in the Silver fleet for the coming six races over two days.
Meanwhile, in the bowmen's 49er FX fleet, newcomers Erin McIlwaine and Ellen Barbour had their best day with a second and a third plus a 15th, scores that boosted their overall standing to 37th place.
