Australia’s Tom Burton wins Silver in Santander today

by Rob Kothe and the Sail-World Team on 19 Sep 2014 After days of light weather, the back end of this 2014 ISAF World Championship has made up with more than enough wind.

1,167 competitors from 81 nations racing here on the Bay of Biscay with 50% of the Rio Olympic country qualifications in play and the first of the medal races away today.

Racing was held on the ‘Duna’ course, parallel to the shoreline for thousands of spectators to watch as well as live broadcasting to over 22 nations and we ran the live broadcasts of the two medal races, the Laser and Laser Radial here on Sail-World.

In the Laser class, the hunt for the Gold Medal was thrown wide open in the Medal race, when regatta leader Tom Burton had a poor first leg, Burton had stuck to the left hand side of the first windward leg and struggled to get across to the favoured right and as a result rounded last with championship title gone at that point.

Heiner was second at the top mark and held on the downwind leg before finding an extra gear, pulling out a one minute lead on the next upwind whilst those behind 'played mix the places' in the shifting conditions. After that Heiner was able to sail conservatively downwind to take the gun.

Nick Thompson (GBR) had worked his way up to fifth in the race and second overall before he got nosedived into a wave doing a gybe. His stall was enough to drop him to eighth place behind Burton in seventh and drop him to third overall with Burton taking the runner up position.

Germany’s Phillip Buhl with a sixth finished in fourth place ahead of Robert Scheidt.

Heiner was obviously surprised and there were a lot of post interview apologies for the salty language from Sky commentators.

Burton who has been the former sailor of recent regattas was obviously disappointed to miss out on Gold but at the top of the first beat he was not even a podium contender so for him the only way was up.

Burton commented ‘Very tricky race physically and mentally. Obviously things didn't go to plan and were looking a lot worse. I'm happy to come away with silver and keep stepping it up towards Rio.

'I've showed consistency throughout the last few regattas and hopefully carry that on getting closer and closer to the top. -

I am disappointed of course not to take the regatta lead and convert it to Gold.

'However lots of lessons learned. Each point in the early series was very valuable and when I look back I can see lots of ways for improvement.’

In other classes all is right with the world with Belcher and Ryan taking two wins today to lead the 470 class.

Outteridge and Jensen move into third place, it’s unlikely they can catch Burling and Tuke but they are only a whisker off Nico Delle – Karth and Nikolaus Resch (AUT).

Darren Bundock and Nina Curtis are seventh, only five points off the podium.