2014 ISAF Sailing World Cup Qingdao - Bronze Medal for Tom Burton
by Cora Zillich on 19 Oct 2014
Tom Burton ISAF
2014 ISAF Sailing World Cup Qingdao - Australian Sailing Team’s Tom Burton (NSW) finished third in the Laser fleet at the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Qingdao (14-18 October), China in Saturday’s medal race.
The current ISAF World Rankings number one Laser sailor and recent World Championship silver medallist was the only Australian Sailing Team member participating at the event. Australian Sailing Squad’s Mark Spearman finished the regatta in 18th.
It was a light wind, big wave finish at ISAF Sailing World Cup Qingdao as the medallists were decided across the six fleets competing on the waters of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Sailing Competition.
It was a week of ups and downs for Burton who struggled on the opening day with the current but was back to his best from the off on day two. He took a race win that day ahead of Pavlos Kontides (CYP) who finished the regatta in second. Croatian Tonci Stipanovic was the overall winner at this World Cup.
After nine races over five days Burton went into the final medal race in third with only one point separating him from Wannes Van Laer (BEL) in fourth.
In the medal race, Burton came through in third, three places ahead of Van Laer to take bronze but there were a few nerves on the race track, 'The first beat everybody had a close eye on each other. I wasn’t looking too good at the top mark. Wannes was in front by a few boats so I just had to stay close and put a bit of pressure on him. I managed to get a bit of pressure on the second beat and just snuck past and held off to the finish.'
'I’m reasonably happy. It’s nice to finish a tough week, I wasn’t happy with the way I was sailing. The guys at the front were really on to it. You’ve got to be on top of your game.'
The ISAF Sailing World Cup Final set to be held at the end of November in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates will be up next for Burton. Burton already secured the invite based on his silver medal result at the World Championships in Santander, Spain in September.
At the beginning of December the Australian Sailing Team will compete on home waters at the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Melbourne from 7 – 14 December 2014.
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