British sailors claim 470 Europeans bronze in the ‘City of Smiles’

by RYA on 5 Jul 2015 Sophie Weguelin and Eilidh McIntyre wrapped up bronze for Great Britain as the 470 European Championships drew to a close in Aarhus, Denmark, on Saturday (Fourth July).

The world number ten-ranked duo finished fifth overall in the Open regatta, won by New Zealand’s Olympic Champions Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie, and were the third-ranked European crew after a testing week at the Danish venue.

Slovenia’s Tina Mrak-Veronika Macarol secured the European Championship title.

The British duo rounded off their week with a fourth place in the final double-points medal race, held amid light winds on Saturday, to seal the European bronze.

Weguelin, 26, admitted to mixed emotions as she stepped onto the podium with her 21-year-old teammate McIntyre.

“It is really cool to come away with a Europeans medal. But it is also just a little bit frustrating right now as we know it could have been better,” the Lymington sailor explained.

“We didn’t come here to come third. We made a few errors during the week which ultimately made the difference – there were a few boat handling mistakes, we hit a boat in one of the races so had to take penalty turns which lost us seven places, and those things ultimately added up.

“But we’ve shown great boat speed this week and have made some really great progress on our starts, so those are some positives to take away from the event in terms of our sailing, as well as the bronze medal.”

“I personally feel like we’ve been sailing well for the most part,” McIntyre added.

“We had a really good first day. We then got our priorities wrong on day two and on day three we made a number of unforced errors, which was kind of the story of our week. But it’s good in a sense that the things which went wrong are things which are easy to fix.”

“It’s been an interesting venue to race in, and a week of two halves in terms of the conditions,” Weguelin concluded.

“Hopefully the experience of racing here will bode well when the World Championships come here in 2018.”

In the men’s division, defending European Champions Luke Patience and Elliot Willis finished as the fourth European crew, sixth overall, after a testing week which included a forced retirement from one race due to equipment breakage.

The duo went into the final day in overall sixth and consolidated their position with a sixth place in the final medal race. Overall event victory went to USA’s Stuart McNay-David Hughes, with Germany’s Ferdinand Gerz- Oliver Szymansk claiming the European crown.

“We had a good year last year at the European Championships and came away with the gold medal. This year, and in this venue in particular we found it hard to find flow throughout the week,” Willis explained.

“We had a bit of gear failure mid-week which is almost inexcusable. But we’ve got plenty to look forward and plenty of development to do on our road to Rio.”

Patience added: “Not long before this regatta we had the Weymouth and Portland World Cup. We really improved this week from that regatta so although no medal, we’ve come off the back of this week feeling good about where we’ve got our sailing to in a short time.

“We’ll be in different equipment out in Rio and It’s the first real test before the Olympic Games, so there are an entirely different set of priorities from what we had this week.

“We’ll be out in Rio with what I like to think is our best package and looking to create a performances that’s really hard to beat.”

Elsewhere, Nick Thompson is poised in fourth place after two days of racing at the Laser World Championship in Kingston, Canada, while British Sailing Team Nacra 17 crews are preparing to start their World Championship in Aarhus on Sunday (Fifth July).

British sailors will also be in action at the 49er European Championship starting in Porto, Portugal, on Tuesday (Seventh July).