Press release - Tornado European Championship/Mats Nyberg Trophy

by Darren Bundock on 29 Jul 2006 Sydney Olympic foes, Australian Darren Bundock and Austrian skipper Roman Hagara, have established themselves as early favourites for victory at the upcoming Olympic Test event in China with their domination of the European Tornado catamaran titles in Travemunde, Germany.

Hagara and crewmate Hans Peter Steinacher, the men who ended Bundock's dream of an Olympic gold in home waters in 2000, claimed the European crown.

But Bundock, still finding his groove with new crewmate Glenn Ashby, recovered from a poor start to the regatta to finish second behind the inform Austrians Bundock believes will be among his major rivals in China.

Bundock said "Roman and Hans Peter have proven once again that they will be the team to beat in Beijing in 2008, However I am sure I have found the right crew to combat them at the next Olympics. Glenn and I have been sailing together for only 8 months and already this year we have been the most inform team. We have not finished worst than 2nd in any regatta this year. This is a incredible feat for our first season considering we can see so many areas for improvement, we are only going to go faster"

The regatta in China will be the last major event for Tornado sailors prior to this year's world championships in Argentina from December 2- 9. Bundock and Ashby, who joined forces as a Tornado combination in November , are hoping to cap their first year together a team with a world title.

Bundock won the Tornado world titles in 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003 with former partner, the now retired John Forbes, but believes he and Ashby can repeat the feat in Argentina.

Bundock said ' the next two years will be such a exciting time and we are expecting big things as every time we sail we gel and things are falling into place and we are seeing continual improvement, We have won Princess Sofia Regatta, Kiel Olympic Week and finished 2nd in Holland regatta against all our major competition for 2008. Our competition must be worried".

Bundock also commented "Roman Hagara and Hans Peter Steinacher are so experienced together and have been sailing together since 1996, this year we stopped their domination by beating them at the ISAF World championships on their home waters in Austria. They had everything going for them, home advantage, tricky conditions but we are so motivated and working hard for 2008 to revenge the 2000 Olympic where they stole Gold from me".

At the Europeans, Hagara and Steinacher dominated with 1,1,3,2,4,2,9,5 scorecard with Bundock and Ashby second with 14,7,12,1,3,1,1,1.

Bundock will now go directly to Greece to compete in a Blind and Disabled charity long distance race while Ashby will go to Vastervik, Sweden to try and win the A-Class World Championships for the 4th time before the pair team up again in china for the Olympic test even from 18-30 August.


G-PL SEGELNR STEUERMANN/-FRAU CREW CLUB PL(1.Wf) PL(2.Wf) PL(3.Wf) PL(4.Wf) PL(5.Wf) PL(6.Wf) PL(7.Wf) PL(8.Wf) G-PKTE G-PL
1 AUT 3 Hagara, Roman Steinacher, Hans Peter YCZ 1 1 3 2 4 2 [9] 5 18,00 1
2 AUS 8 Bundock, Darren Ashby, Glenn VSaW [14] 7 12 1 3 1 1 1 26,00 2
3 FRA 1 Revil, Xavier Espagnon, Christophe SRV ANNECY [10] 4 4 6 2 7 5 3 31,00 3
4 GRE 7 Iordanis, Paschalidis Kostas, Trigonis noth 5 6 [23] 3 1 22 4 10 51,00 4
5 FRA 7 Guichard, Yann Guyader, Alexandre iLE AUX MOINE 3 9 7 17 [19] 10 11 14 71,00 5
6 FRA 302 Oliver, Backes Paul-Ambroise, Sevestre SNMarseille [44] 19 25 7 5 3 6 9 74,00 6
7 ITA 257 Marcolini, Francesco Bianchi, Edoardo 7 [43] 6 18 23 4 10 11 79,00 7
8 USA 808 Lovell, John Ogletree, Charlie Southern Yacht Club 6 24 10 [30] 28 5 7 4 84,00 8
9 FRA 282 Souben, Matthieu Bontemps, Gurvan SRVannes 12 18 8 4 10 16 [30] 18 86,00 9
10 GBR 1 Mc Millan, Leigh Howden, William RYA 9 [23] 22 13 9 13 3 19 88,00 10


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