Garda Trentino Olympic Week - Ed Wright claims Garda gold

by Matt Carter on 13 May 2013 Garda Trentino Olympic Week came to an end on Sunday (12 May) with gold for British Finn sailor Ed Wright, and silver for windsurfer Bryony Shaw at the first regatta in the new EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup five-event series.

Wright was the sole British gold medallist among the 15-sailor British entry, which competed in five of the Olympic classes at Lake Garda, Italy.

The 35-year-old Wright qualified in pole position for the six-boat final race in which a third place finish was enough to seal his victory, with silver going to Croatia’s Ivan Kjlakovic Gaspic, and bronze to Poland’s Piotr Kula. After a testing start to the week, Hyeres World Cup winner Andrew Mills finished tenth overall.

Shaw, meanwhile, continued her medal-winning form, claiming a fourth straight podium finish of the year. The RS:X Worlds silver medallist amassed a 14-point lead in the qualifying series in which she won seven of her ten races, but fell foul of the experimental scoring system in the final race.

With just positions carried forward into the final day instead of points, Shaw’s third place in the final race wasn’t enough to fend of local hero Flavia Tartaglini, who won the final to clinch gold by one point over the Beijing bronze medallist. Izzy Hamilton finished fifth overall.

In the men’s RS:X fleet, British sailors Elliot Carney and Tom Squires finished in fifth and sixth respectively, with gold going to Dutch Olympic Champion Dorian Van Rijsselberge. World Champion Nick Dempsey, who had been competing in Garda, withdrew from the event following the tragic death of his friend and British Sailing teammate Andrew Simpson in San Francisco on Thursday night.

Elsewhere, Chloe Martin narrowly missed out on the final Laser Radial race, finishing seventh overall, while Macclesfield’s Elliot Hanson was the top-ranked British Laser sailor, finishing the event in 26th place, with Ben Cornish in 28th overall.

The next stage of the EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup will be the Delta Lloyd Regatta, Medemblik, Netherlands, from 21-25 May.

For the full overall list of results from Garda Trentino Olympic Week visit the event website