Gold Medal for WAIS Sailor Rachel Cox

Published On: 16 August 2010

Rachel Cox in action in Weymouth

The Australian Sailing Team’s Skud 18 crew of Daniel Fitzgibbon and WAIS scholarship holder Rachel Cox have won the country’s first Gold medal at the 2010 Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta in Weymouth, England.

The pair dominated the Skud 18 fleet in just their second regatta together since the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games, winning seven of the event’s 10 races to take a 3.7 point victory over the World Champion Great Britain crew.

“We’re both thrilled that we won this regatta, it’s our breakthrough win and we’re really happy with the result,” said skipper Fitzgibbon. “I think we’re sailing better now than we did at the Paralympic Games, we’re trying to get better at every regatta, we were better at this regatta than we were at the last and we’re moving forward well.”

Cox was equally happy with the win, just a couple of weeks after their Bronze medal at the 2010 IFDS World Championship.

“We had a great day today, it was good to be putting into place all the things we learnt in Holland,” said Cox. “It was fantastic to finish this trip on a really high note.”

Fitzgibbon and Cox won the opening race of the day before finishing the regatta with a second, a great finale to a busy two months in Europe.

In sad news, Rob Bird – a passionate supporter and sponsor (Pro Choice Safety) of the WAIS Sailing Program – recently passed away. His commitment and enthusiasm to sailing and the WAIS program will not be soon forgotten. The Western Australian Institute of Sport wishes Rob’s family and friends and all at Pro Choice its sincere condolences.