Skandia Sail for Gold - Aussie crew win Gold medal

by Craig Heydon on 14 Aug 2010 The Australian Sailing Team’s Skud 18 crew of Daniel Fitzgibbon and Rachael Cox have won the country’s first Gold medal at the 2010 Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta in Weymouth, England.

The pair dominated the Skud 18 fleet in just their second regatta together since the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games, winning seven of the event’s 10 races to take a 3.7 point victory over the World Champion Great Britain crew.

'We’re both thrilled that we won this regatta, it’s our breakthrough win and we’re really happy with the result,' said skipper Fitzgibbon. 'I think we’re sailing better now than we did at the Paralympic Games, we’re trying to get better at every regatta, we were better at this regatta than we were at the last and we’re moving forward well.'

Cox was equally happy with the win, just a couple of weeks after their Bronze medal at the 2010 IFDS World Championship.

'We had a great day today, it was good to be putting into place all the things we learnt in Holland,' said Cox. 'It was fantastic to finish this trip on a really high note.'

Fitzgibbon and Cox won the opening race of the day before finishing the regatta with a second, a great finale to a busy two months in Europe.

Elsewhere Australian crews are in contention for four more Gold medals as the regatta heads into the final day of racing on Saturday.

Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen head into the medal race with a 12 point lead in the 49er class, Tom Slingsby has an eight point gap in the Laser class, Nicky Souter, Nina Curtis and Olivia Price will race off for the Gold medal in the Women’s Match Racing and 470 crew Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page head into the final race just two points off the lead.

Outteridge and Jensen had a mixed day by their high standards in the 49er fleet, but still managed to open up a 12 point lead over the second placed French team with just the double-points medal race left to go.

'Today was a bit of an average day, we sailed pretty well but just lucked out a bit a times with some massive wind shifts and managed to come home with an 18th, second and a 17th,' said Outteridge. 'We actually moved 12 points out in front so results wise it was pretty good, just a bit of a frustrating day out there for everyone.'

'The 12 point lead is quite nice,' said crew Jensen. 'It means the boats behind us probably won’t be focusing on us and they’ll be trying to keep their spot because it’s all pretty tight behind us.'

'I think because we were more consistent earlier on where our worst result was an eighth it allowed us to drop one of our bad ones today so effectively rather than having a really bad day we’ve had an eighth, a second and a 17th where a lot of the other teams had already had a bad one and had to carry all their results today so it worked out well.'

Tom Slingsby carried a massive overall lead into Friday’s racing but unfortunately had a tough day on the water finishing the two races with a 16th and a 19th, but the dual World Champion heads into the medal race with an eight point lead over Olympic champion Paul Goodison from Great Britain.

'Today was not such a good day with a 16 and a 19, the sides worked and I went up the middle a bit too much and paid the price,' said Slingsby. 'I’ve got an eight point lead going into the medal race so it’s close and means that Goodison will have to put four boats between us, it’s a nice little buffer but anything can happen in the medal race.'

Slingsby is looking forward to Saturday’s medal race which will take place in the harbour close to the shore after his final race at the 2009 Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta was cancelled due to a lack of wind.

'I really want to do some racing in the harbour here where the medal race course is as we don’t do too much sailing here, we’re always well outside the harbour,' he said. 'I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.'

Current 470 World Champions Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page head into the final race just two points behind their French competitors after finishing the day with a sixth and a third.

'We went into today in first position but it was close as we were just one point ahead and we managed to come out two points back so tomorrow it comes down to who beats who,' said Belcher. 'The conditions today were a mix of everything, probably all in the same race as well. We started in about six knots, it got up to 15, back down to two and was very shifty and tricky making it a matter of playing the wind and keeping an eye on the competition.'

The pair will have a tougher time of it in Saturday’s medal race than their last at the recent 470 World Championship where they had already wrapped up the regatta before the race even began.

'We’ll see what the conditions are like first before we formulate a plan,' said Page. 'The good news is that we can’t do any worse than a medal, third place is some considerable points back and they’re not going to be a huge threat so depending what the conditions throw up will dictate what we do with the French. Maybe we’ll attack, maybe we won’t, we’ll wait and see what tomorrow brings.'

The Australian Women’s Match Racing Team of Nicky Souter, Nina Curtis and Olivia Price won their way through to the Gold medal final against Claire Leroy of France after beating Sweden’s Anna Kjellberg in a tight fought quarter-final three to two before accounting for America’s Anna Tunnicliffe three to nil in the semi-final.

'Tomorrow’s final against Leroy and crew will be a good battle,' said Souter. 'We’ve raced her twice so far this regatta and unfortunately have lost both times but all three of us are ready to change that tomorrow.'

'We’re going to go out there and race the conditions, the conditions were varying a lot today, the wind shifts were crazy out there,' she said. 'We’ve just got to try and pick the shifts, Olivia was doing an awesome job picking them today and hopefully we can do that again tomorrow.'

Fellow Australians Katie Spithill, Jessica Eastwell and Angela Farrell finished the regatta in seventh position after losing their quarter-final match.

With just the final 10 boats heading into Saturday’s medal race the remaining Australian crews finished their regatta on Friday afternoon.

In the Laser Radial class Krystal Weir was 18th following a 21st and an unfortunate black flag on the final day.

Jessica Crisp finished 20th in the RS:X women’s competition with a 31st and then a hard fought fourth place finish to end her regatta on a high note.

In the 49er class brothers Will and Sam Phillips were 12th position while in the 470 class Sam Kivell and Will Ryan were 20th overall.

Tom Burton was unlucky to miss out on a place in the medal race in the Laser fleet after finishing 11th, just one point outside the top 10. Ryan Palk was 22nd and won the opening race of the day while Klade Hauschildt was 51st and Ashley Brunning 53rd.

Jared West was the best placed Australian in the Laser Bronze fleet in 12th, two places ahead of Thor Schoenhoff with Sean Bly 24th.

Colin Harrison, Russell Boaden and Rod Angwin were seventh overall in the Sonar class with a final day sixth and seventh while Matthew Bugg moved up to sixth overall in the 2.4mR fleet after a fighting third place finish in the day’s only race.

In the Finn class Australian Brendan Casey will race in Saturday’s medal race after finishing in ninth overall with a ninth and a sixth on the final day while Tim Castles was 33rd and Rob McMillan one place further back.

Luke Baillie was the best placed Australian in the RS:X men’s fleet, finishing 23rd in the Silver fleet, while Tim Gourlay was 33rd and James Levy 34th.

For more information and daily video highlights visit www.australiansailingteam.com.au