Outteridge and Austin new 49er World Champions

by Teri Dodds / Sail-world.com/uk on 10 Jan 2008
Nathan Outteridge and Ben Austin of Australia are the new 49er World Champions. Tied in the overall lead going into the final medal race with defending champions, Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes of Britain, the Aussie pair won the Medal race with Morrison and Rhodes in third place.

Morrison and Rhodes took the Silver and Rodion Luka and George Leonchuk (UKR) the Bronze.

The Medal race started in a crisp 20 knots breeze with a short chop; the Australians covered their nearest opponents on the tally board GBR1 (Stevie Morrison / Ben Rhodes) starting at the pin end on top of them.

The Ukraine pairing of George Leonchuk and Rodion Luka were expected to make it a three way battle, they were just a single point back on the leaderboard. But five seconds before the start they capsized. That was the boat race for them. They took last place in the Medal race, but the Italian Sibello brothers could only manage ninth place so the Leonchuk and Luka took the bronze medal.

On the beach Ben Austin said 'We thought if we stuck to the left, with our game plan to stay with them, we’d be in good shape. We had speed on them which was great.'

Nathan Outteridge added 'We had a small speed advantage to windward after the start, got a knock and tacked off, and basically waited for someone to make a mistake.'

After they rounded the top mark first with the Brits hot on their heels, they believed 'if we just hang on here we’re OK.' Austin explained 'we didn’t want to push too hard and it (the boat) felt OK.'

Leading from start to finish, Outteridge’s only concern was to 'just stay upright, be careful in the gybes and go fast.'

49er - Final results

1 AUS OUTTERIDGE, Nathan 9 58 2 60pts
AUSTIN, Ben
2 GBR MORRISON, Stevie 6 58 6 64pts
RHODES, Ben
3 UKR LUKA, Rodion 4 59 20 79pts
LEONCHUK, George
4 ITA SIBELLO, Piero 3 69 18 87pts
SIBELLO, Gianfranco
5 USA WADLOW, Tim 5 78 10 88pts
RAST, Chris
6 GER PECKOLT, Jan Peter 1 89 4 93pts
PECKOLT, Hannes
7 ESP MARTINEZ, Iker 2 83 14 97pts
FERNANDEZ, Xabier
8 DEN WARRER, Jonas 37 96 16 112pts
KIRKETERP, Martin
9 GBR CAMPBELL-JAMES, Paul 45 104 12 116pts
ASQUITH, Mark`
10 AUT DELLE KARTH, Nico Luca Marc 23 111 8 119pts
RESCH, Nikolaus Leopold