Skandia Sail for Gold 2011 day five success for Team GBR

by Lindsey Bell on 12 Jun 2011 Skandia Sail for Gold 2011 Team GBR is the British national sailing team in the Olympic and Paralympic Classes. Ainslie and Dempsey lead the Skandia Team GBR's nine medal haul on the final day of racing.

Ben Ainslie and Nick Dempsey sealed victories in the Finn and RS:X windsurfing events on Saturday (11 June), with further podium glory for British sailors in the 470 women’s, 49er and women’s match racing events taking the GBR medal tally to nine from their home World Cup regatta.

With a sixteen point margin over nearest rival Giles Scott in the race for gold, Ainslie had a comfortable cushion heading into the final ten-boat showdown in Portland Harbour. With Scott the only man capable of taking gold from Ainslie’s grasp, the inevitable pre-start match race ensued, with the two Skandia Team GBR boats continuing their duelling at the back of the fleet for the remainder of the race.

Ainslie finished tenth in the medal race, but with Scott just ahead ninth it was more than enough to secure regatta gold by 14 points for the triple Olympic gold medallist and his fourth World Cup victory of the season. Ed Wright pushed hard to make it three Brits in the podium spots with an emphatic medal race win, but Croatian Ivan Kjlakovic Gaspic managed to keep high enough in the fleet to prevent the British clean sweep.

'It’s been a really tough week physically with strong winds so I’m really pleased to have come out on top,' Ainslie commented.

'We’ve got a huge quality in the Finn fleet, especially in the British team with Giles and Ed Wright in particular sailing very well.'

'It’s been hard work, I won’t hide from that fact. It was one of the toughest events I think I’ve ever done physically.'

'Sometimes that’s the way it goes,' said Ainslie of the medal race battle between him and the 23-year-old Scott.

'Giles was the only one who could beat me and in terms of our Olympic selection trials then that was a pretty big deal. I sealed the regatta win and it worked out OK. It’s always quite tense with those match races, it’s never easy and Giles sailed very well and put up a good fight. It’s a tough situation that we only have one spot per class.'

'It was all stacked against me,' conceded Scott. 'Sixteen points is a massive deficit, especially when I was the only one who could beat Ben.

'I’d be lying if I said I was pleased with silver. I came here to win and unfortunately wasn’t able to do that. Ben sailed a fantastic week and sailed well again today.'

Dempsey had competition both from in front and behind heading into the medal race for the RS:X men’s windsurfing event, but fought off the New Zealander Jon Paul Tobin and Dutchman Dorian van Rijsselberge to claim World Cup gold in his home town.

'It feels brilliant. We’ve had some pretty similar conditions most days so it’s been immensely tight racing,' said Dempsey.

'JP and Dorian have been sailing amazingly so I couldn’t really put a foot wrong as they made it very difficult. But to finish off like that was amazing. That race is kind of what it’s been like all week, so it’s been tough but it’s a really good result.'

Skandia Team GBR’s Elliot 6m trio of Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor were guaranteed a silver heading in their women’s match racing final against USA’s Anna Tunnicliffe, but were unable to overcome the American crew, losing 3-0.

Lush conceded that their silver medal was largely down to uncharacteristically bad starts in the final, but was feeling positive in defeat.

'We’re really pleased. We’ve been working for the last six months with a new coach from Holland. We feel like we’re really improving and feel like we’re close to getting it now, and we need to make sure we lay it down with a gold medal here in August at the Pre-Olympics.'

'We do always tend to have quite tight and difficult races with Anna,' she added of their rivalry with the American crew. 'I think we have quite different styles so we’ll be studying her and working out how to take her down on those small advantages she has at the moment.'

Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark had it all on to keep hold of a medal position in the 470 women’s event. Heading in the final in bronze medal position, they had the ability to improve to silver, but also to drop out of the podium spots altogether, which they looked like doing after a bad first windward leg. But they held their nerve to pull back to third in the medal race and claim silver.

'The medal race was probably a little bit more exciting than we’d have wanted it to be,' Clark admitted.

'Contrary to what everyone might have thought on the shore, our tracker was working and we did go round the first windward mark with nothing. We had a great downwind which put us right back in the fight and from there on we were under control slightly.'

'It feels amazing,' added Mills, who only started sailing with Clark in February after the retirement of Sarah Ayton. 'Obviously we’re a little bit gutted that we weren’t in the fight for gold, but we went into the medal race and achieved the best result we could, which was amazing.'

It was Olympic Champion Paul Goodison who kicked off the Skandia Team GBR medal haul on this final day of competition at the 2012 sailing venue. In bronze medal heading into the day, assured of a podium spot but with gold a possibility, Goodison took an aggressive stance at the start, and tried to impose a penalty on the series leader, Tom Slingsby of Australia.

'I was very frustrated with how [the jury] reacted with it,' said Goodison. 'We didn’t even get a green flag, and that made me a couple of seconds late [for the start] messing around with protest flags from under your bib and I just missed the start. At the end of the day, the wind went left and I got forced out right and it was all over then.'

'It has been a tough week,' he continued. 'Nick [Thompson] started off fantastically which piled the pressure on even more. I think it was hard for me not to just fire into the corners and really start to push things but I held it together and kept sailing the way I normally sail and it was only a matter of time before people got found and before I got it right, so I’m really pleased with how I sailed in the finals.'

Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes secured their second straight World Cup podium finish and ended as top British boat in the 49er class. They defended their overnight position of third with a third place in the ten-boat medal race to earn a second consecutive Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta bronze.

'A bronze medal here feels great, it’s a really good achievement and to have five British boats in the top ten as well just shows that the 49er squad is alive and kicking and something to be reckoned with,' said Morrison.

'It’s been a really stressful week – starting your event with a disqualification is never a good thing - but we’ve delivered something at the end of it. But I’m a bit bored with bronze medals, we quite fancy one of Nathan’s [Outteridge] gold medals but we’ve got a year to work on catching him up!'

Elsewhere in final day action, Charlotte Dobson improved her lot in the Laser Radial event – a fourth in the medal race saw her into fourth place overall, with Alison Young seventh. In the 470 men’s event, Nick Rogers and Chris Grube finished fourth with Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell sixth.

A second in the Star class medal race wasn’t enough to improve Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson’s overall position of fifth, while Bryony Shaw ended her regatta on a high with a win the RS:X women’s medal race to finish seventh overall.

'It’s been a really tough week for everyone, and a pretty physical week with predominantly moderate to strong winds and some fairly long days,' said RYA Olympic Manager Stephen Park.

'Lots of the sailors have been looking over their shoulders for their fellow Brits, particularly as this event was the key event in terms of selecting the team for the Olympic Test Event.

'It’s great to see so many people win medals, and also to be able to have so many strong top ten performers in every single Olympic and Paralympic event. Our Paralympic sailors did particularly well yesterday, and winning medals sets them up well for the IFDS Worlds next month.'

'For the moment, you’d have to say we’re on track,' Park continued. 'Measured by the number of countries that are winning gold medals, clearly the world of Olympic sailing continues to get more and more competitive, it’s getting harder to stay on top and the margins are getting smaller and smaller.

'But at the moment, we’re hanging on there and it’s great we’ve got a squad of so many world class sailors.'

Skandia Team GBR’s final medal standings:
Gold (3)
Ben Ainslie (Finn)
Nick Dempsey (RS:X Men)
John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Steve Thomas (Sonar)

Silver (4)
Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor (Women’s Match Racing)
Alexandra Rickham and Niki Birrell (SKUD)
Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark (470 Women)
Giles Scott (Finn)

Bronze (2)
Paul Goodison (Laser)
Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes Skandia Team GBR Skandia Sail for Gold website