WAIS Sailors Wins International Bronze
Australia’s Paralympic sailors have won gold and bronze medal in the Skud 18 class on the penultimate day of the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Weymouth, England.
Daniel Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch won their second straight ISAF Sailing World Cup Gold medal following their victory in Miami in January, while WAIS athletes Jamie Dunross and Rachel Cox won Bronze in their first international regatta together.
Fitzgibbon, who won Silver at the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games, and Tesch, a three-time Paralympic Games medalist in Wheelchair Basketball, only teamed up at the start of this year and dominate the regatta in Weymouth from start to finish, winning by four points.
“We had a really consistent regatta and were always up there and competitive in every race,” said Fitzgibbon. “We’ve got our World Championships here in a couple of weeks and this win is a confidence booster before that where we’re going to have a fight on our hands against the other two Australian crews, we’re all very competitive out there.”
For Tesch the win continues her amazing start to high performance sailing, after only sailing a Skud 18 for the first time at the beginning of the year.
“We’re rocking and rolling here and had a really, really, awesome week,” said Tesch. “To get off the plane and straight into the boat was always going to be a challenge but we’ve pulled it off really nicely.”
Tesch is also looking forward to the challenge of the upcoming IFDS World Championships.
“For me the World Championships are not a World Championships, they’re a qualifying event for the Australian Paralympic team and that’s what I’m putting my mind to,” she said. “The Australian camp could go one, two and three at the Worlds, we certainly have the potential and it’s awesome to train against those guys, though it’s a bit weird when you turn around out there on the race course and you’re competing against each other for that one spot at the Games.”
Dunross and Cox were hot on the heels of their fellow Australians all regatta with the Bronze medallists finishing in the top six in every race, an impressive result in their first event as a team.
“Jamie and I only got together as a team back in January and we’ve been training at home in Perth but haven’t had any international competition until now,” Cox said. “After this week it’s good to know that we’re at the top end of the fleet, we’ve just got a couple of places higher to go at the next regatta.
“We’ll be training a lot before the next regatta and are in a good position to chip away for a good result at the IFDS World Championships,” she said.
Fellow Australians Ame Barnbrook and Lindsay Mason finished the week fifth after two fourth positions on the final day.
While the Paralympic classes finished their regatta on Friday the 10 Olympic classes will battle it out for medals on Saturday with Australian Sailing Team members in the hunt in three classes.
49er crew Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen continued their strong form in Weymouth with another good day on the water to open up a 17 point lead heading into the final medal race, meaning they just need to ensure they don’t finish last and the second placed French team doesn’t win to take their third straight Gold medal at this event.
“This being the Olympic venue everyone wants to get the win,” said Jensen. “For us to potentially do it three years in a row is a great thing, when we started out together we didn’t think we were going to win here every time but it’s great looking forward to the Games that we’ve had success here.”
Australia will have a second crew in the 49er medal race with Victorian brothers Will and Sam Phillips sitting fifth overall. The pair find themselves 11 points off the Bronze medal but with two points up for grabs for the win and 20 for last there is still plenty to play for.
Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page ended the fleet racing section of the regatta with two third places to lift them from their overnight third to be second overall. The pair is five points off the leading French team and has a comfortable 19 points off third, meaning they will need to get a boat between themselves and the French to take out the regatta.
“We’ve proven in the past that anything can happen in the medal race and find ourselves in a similar position to what we were last year, but hopefully we can come out of it one better than we did in 2010,” said Belcher.
In the Laser class Tom Slingsby had a tough day by his high standards with two 12ths and heads into the medal race with eight points on New Zealand’s Andrew Murdoch with Olympic champion Paul Goodison of Great Britain a point further back in third.
The three are the only ones who can win a medal and all three could end the day in a different position than when they started so there will be plenty of action in the opening medal race of the day.
Slingsby is aiming to join Outteridge and Jensen in winning three straight regattas at the 2012 London Olympic Games venue.
“I’ve got a bit more pressure going into the medal race this year than I have in the past,” said Slingsby. “It’s a bit closer than it has been before when I’ve had a nice lead but that’s ok, I need to get use to sailing here under pressure, to be sailing in the medal race at the Olympic venue with plenty of pressure being applied.”
Slingsby will be joined in the Laser medal race by fellow Australian Sailing Team member Tom Burton who moved up to fifth overall following a 15th and a third in the day’s two races.
The Australian Women’s Match Racing Team crew of Nicky Souter, Jessica Eastwell and Lucinda Whitty ended the regatta eighth overall after losing narrowly in the quarter-finals.
Souter and crew pushed the French team led by Claire Leroy the whole way, coming from behind twice to force a fifth and final race, eventually missing out on a spot in the semi-finals by the smallest of margins.
Brendan Casey finished the day 24th in the Finn class while WAIS athletes Tessa Parkinson and Belinda Stowell were 42nd in the 470 women.
Australian Sailing Squad member Ryan Palk ended the week 14th after winning the opening Gold fleet race of the day, finishing ahead of James Burman in 16th, Jared West in 55th and Ki-Raphael Sulkowski in 62nd.
In the 470 men Sam Kivell and Will Ryan ended their week 29th, while Alexander and Patrick Conway were 28th in the Silver fleet.
Krystal Weir narrowly missed out on a position in the Laser Radial medal race finishing 13th, ahead of Gabrielle King in 28th, Ashley Stoddart in 36th, who on her 18th birthday had her best result of the regatta with a fourth in the opening race day, and Caitlin Elks was 35thin the Silver fleet.
In the RS:X women’s Jessica Crisp is 24th and Allison Shreeve is 28th, while Joanna Sterling is 20th in the Silver fleet.
Matt Bugg finished 12th in the 2.4mR Paralympic class and will now head to Kiel for the final round of the ISAF Sailing World Cup before returning to Weymouth for the IFDS World Championship. In the Sonar class Colin Harrison (WAIS), Russell Boaden and Rod Angwin were eighth.
In the Finn fleet Oliver Tweddell was 23rd, Rob McMillan 36th, Tim Castles 42nd and Shaun Wells 56th.
Tim Gourlay was eighth in the RS:X men’s Silver fleet, with Jimmy Levy 20th, Luke Baillie 31st and Patrick Vos 39th.
Racing finishes at the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta on Saturday, for more information on the Australian Sailing Team, visit www.australiansailingteam.com.au.
– Yachting Australia