AUSTRIAN TORNADO CREW CREATE HISTORY

by Ian Grant on 23 Sep 2000 Roman Hagara and Hans-Peter Steinacher created their own special place in Olympic sailing history yesterday when they won the Tornado class Gold Medal with two races to spare.

Amazingly the light wind sailing specialists who have completely outsailed the 16 Nation fleet were never placed further back than fourth in nine races.

This is by far the most convincing win since the exciting high-tech power sailing Tornado catamaran was first introduced to the Olympics 24 years ago.

Hagara who was considered to be too light in body weight when he crewed for his brother Andreas to finish 7th at Barcelona in 1992 has claimed the highest honour in the class as a skipper 8 years later.

Over the past eight years he has become the most feared light wind sailor on the International Tornado racing circuit with his gifted skills.

His talent combined with the equally gifted Hans-Peter Steinacher allowed the speed sailing duo to become Austria's first ever sailing Gold Medallist when they sealed victory on the Tasman Sea of Sydney's North Head yesterday.

Collectively this high performance sailing team who are now sporting icons in Austria displayed their World class by generally dominating the race for Gold when they won the second race of the series.

They eventually recorded the remarkably consistent score of 3-1-2-1-1-4-1-1-2 to place the Gold Medal beyond reach of their rivals who will be involved in a mate against mate match race to decide the minor medals today.

Australia's Darren Bundock and John Forbes are expected to protect their 11 point margin to win the Silver medal while the crews representing France, Germany, New Zealand are best placed to decide the Bronze.

PROGRESSIVE POINTS: AUT 12, AUS 27, FRA 38, GER 40, NZL 49, PUR 53, USA 53, GBR 54, ESP 64, ARG 66.