World Championship Win for New Zealand Sailors and a Class Qualification for the Olympics

by Louise Andrews on 12 Sep 2002 Simon Cooke and Peter Nicholas have come from behind to win the 470 World Championships in Sardinia, Italy early this morning (NZ time).

The win represents a double celebration for the pair as they are the first to qualify their class for entry in the 2004 Olympics. (the top 10 Countries in the men's fleet and top 6 countries in the women's fleet at the 470 Worlds
secure a place for their Country in the 470 event at the Olympics)

Cooke and Nicholas were in third place before sailing in the final race of the championship. A fourth placing was enough to secure the Gold medal.

Yachting New Zealand's Chief Executive Simon Wickham comments 'This is an outstanding result in one of the toughest Olympic classes. The support provided through SPARC in ensuring Yachting New Zealand could have coaching support and our top rated crew at these world champs has paid off'.

'What makes the achievement even more outstanding is that they reside on opposite sides of the world, which obviously restricts their on-the-water training'

Simon Cooke and Peter Nicholas have been sailing together since 1999. They sailed together at the Sydney 2000 games where they placed 7th in the 470's.In the two years since the Games, they have sailed together for only 5 weeks for the 2001 worlds and 5 weeks this year for the pre pre Olympics in Athens and these worlds - a far cry from their opponents who mainly sail full time, year round. Peter resides in Edinburgh, with wife Lisa and Simon in Auckland, but they communicate by phone and email weekly on their development program and racing strategy.

They won the European Champs in 2000. Past World Championship results: Peter (with brother Terry Nicholas ) 1984 (48th ), 1985 ( 27th ) , 1986 ( 8th )
Simon, (with brother Rohan and Andrew Brown) 1994 ( 63rd ) , 1997 ( 17th ) , 1998 ( 52nd ) . Together - 1999 ( 16th ) , 2000 (16th ) , 2001 ( 6th )

They are both non-professional sailors - most of the gold fleet sailors are full time professional sailors - but Peter and Simon have full time jobs: Simon works for Oracle Americas cup Syndicate, and Peter owns his own construction
company in Edinburgh.


Other New Zealand results:

Men's
Andrew Brown / Jamie Hunt - 25 th
Stephen Keen / Philip Keen - 34 th
Women's
Shelley Hesson / Linda Dickson - 20th

For full results the official website is: http://www.470worlds.com