Wilmot and Page – two Championship wins in two weeks

by Di Pearson on 18 Jan 2004 Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page (AUS) would be feeling quite confident right now. The pair today won the 470 Olympic class from Sandringham Yacht Club at the Sail Melbourne Regatta.

Coming straight from their 420 World title win at Mornington Yacht club just short of one week ago, the pair finished this regatta with two first places, five seconds and other top placings to finish the 11 race series with 18 points, seven in front of the second placed Nick Rogers/Joe Glanfield (GBR), the latter pair will represent Great Britain in Athens in August this year.

Kazuto Seki/Kenjiro Todoroki (JPN) had an excellent regatta to finish in third place overall with 39 points. They are ranked 21 in the World, and were not expected to finish in a top three position – six of the top ten sailors in the world were in the fleet.

Gustavo Martinez/Dimas Valdivielso (ESP) had only one win in the series, but were consistently top four finishers to finish fourth overall with 40 points.

Gildas Philippe/Nicolas Le Berre (FRA), the World second ranked pair, were touted to be the major threat to all in this class, but petered out as the series went on to finish fifth with 41 points.

In the Women’s fleet, Ingrid Petitjean/Nadege Douroux (FRA) were unstoppable from the word go. Their final points, including a second and third place in the Combined fleet, beating the top male crews for these places, gave them a deserved ninth overall with 87 points to win the Women’s, from Christina Bassadone/Katherine Hopson (GBR) with 108 points, for 13th Combined and second women.

Natalia Via-Dufresne/Sandra Azon (ESP) finished 14th overall, third Women on count back from Jenny Armstrong/Belinda Stowell (AUS) on 27 points each.

Armstrong/Stowell had their best race of the series in the final race, in which they finished ninth in Combined for a win in the Women’s.

‘We got a good start, picked all the right shifts, we were racing top ten with all the men. It was nice to get a good start and a good finish, Jenny’s a good driver, actually we haven’t had the easiest regatta this week, so it’s good the selection is over,’ Stowell said.

‘Even some of the other girls commented, ‘you two were the only girls out there racing today’ – we went for it, but we were conservative when we needed to be, there was no use going over the top. We feel some confidence going to the National’s next week. We can get on with our plans for the Olympics now,’ Armstrong said.

A prize giving will be held tonight by the host, Sandringham Yacht Club.

For full information, results and photos go to: www.sailmelbourne.com.au