Australia wins first Olympic Ynglings race

by Rob Kothe Sail-World.com on 9 Aug 2008
At the start of the Yngling competition at the Beijing 2008 Olympic regatta in Qingdao, it was light weather racing on Course A for the 15 boat Women’s keelboat class.

Sofia Bekatorou (GRE) led at the top mark, from Ann le Helley (FRA), with China’s Xiagun Song third. Australia’s Krystal Weir and crew were seventh at the top mark and surprisingly the British crew Ayton, Webb and Wilson, were last.

The fleet compressed on the run and the French grabbed the lead. Sally Barkow USA stormed into second place, ahead of the Greek team. The Australians had climbed into fifth place and the Brits were now ninth.

The Australians picked a good shift in the second beat to close to second place behind the French. The British favourites slide back to eleventh place; it looked like their race was over.

Down the run however conditions lightened even more and Weir and her crew of Karyn Gojnich and Angela Farrell took the lead. The British team stormed around the fleet on the left to finish in second place. Third was Ekaterina Skudina and crew (RUS).

Race 2 was won by the team from the Nederlands, Annemieke Bes, Mandy Muler and Merel Witteveen. The USA team of Sally Barkow, Debbie Capozzzi and Carrie Howe finished second with the British team third. The Australians finished well back in 11th place after completing a 720 after a top mark incident.

Overall the British team leads from the Canadians (Katie Abbott, Jennifer Provan and Martha Henderson) with the Nederlands third.

Dockside Sarah Webb commented that the tide was playing a major impact on tactics. 'Hard work out there today. It was incredibly tight, everyone have very much similar speed. We could have easily given up on the first race but we just kept plugging away.'

Two more races are scheduled for tomorrow.

Overall Results after 2 races

1. Great Britain
2. Canada
3. Nederlands
4. Russia
5. Australia
6. China

Full results at ISAF Olympic microsite click here