Finn Lynch secured Ireland's best ever result at a World Sailing Championships on Wednesday. 

The 2016 Olympian claimed silver in the Laser Radial off Barcelona.

The Carlow sailer actually accrued the best score across all eight races, but was relegated to silver when Thomas Saunders' took gold after allowance for worst race discard was applied.

It completes an amazing upturn in fortunes for Lynch, who missed out on qualifying for Tokyo 2020 earlier this year.

"Finn has delivered an impeccable regatta and realised his full potential after years of dedication and hard work," said James O’Callaghan, Performance Director with Irish Sailing.

"It would be tempting to imagine what another day of racing might have achieved but silver and the best performance of any of the 135 athletes at the regatta is everything we could ask of him."

Lynch and co had to deal with light winds, before eventually being cleared to race on Wednesday.

“I'm extremely happy with the result but it didn't come by co-incidence or some luck - it came after a lot of work after not being able to qualify for the Olympics which was really hard on Finn," added Vasilij Zbogar, the Slovenian triple-Olympic medallist who is Laser coach with Irish Sailing.

"This was something that Finn needed so that he can start to believe.

"He was good already last year but mentally he wasn't ready to be in the front.    This week was really solid sailing all week and he didn't make any mistakes.

"He had the lowest point score of the entire fleet meaning he was really consistent."

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