First ISAF World Cup medal to Clarke and Bjorn

by Lynn Fitzpartick on 30 Jan 2011 Canada’s Richard Clarke and Tyler Bjorn won their first ISAF World Cup medal at the US Sailing’s 2011 Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta. The Clarke Bjorn Sailing Team added a bronze medal to the treasure chest that they accumulated this January in other Star Class and big boat regattas.

The Canadians went into the double point medal race sitting in the silver position, but Freddy Loof and Max Salminen (SWE) aced out three other boats that were overlapped with them on the finish line to overcome the deficit that they had had on Clarke and Bjorn going into the race.

Clarke and Bjorn have sailed in Star Class regattas and championships such as the North Americans, the Western Hemispheres and the Europeans and they have only raced in one other World Cup event in which all of the Olympic and Paralympic Classes compete. They were in good company while they sat on the sidelines during the medal race at the Weymouth Sail for Gold event last August. This time they were not only in the top ten of the 57-boat fleet, they were only one of a handful of boats that mathematically could win a medal.

'Everything was great,' said Clarke. 'We had a great start, right in the middle of the line, played the shifts correctly, rounded the first weather mark in fourth – it was all good until we were flagged by the jury.' The Clarke/Bjorn Sailing Team exonerated itself by doing penalty turns, but fell to the back of the 10-boat fleet and could not recover on the short course.

'We’re happy with the medal. It’s been a great week and it was nice to have my wife and daughter and our major sponsor Wind Athletes Canada here to share the experience,' said Clarke in his new Magic Marine gear as he rinsed the salt off of the team’s running rigging supplied by Yale Cordage.

Loof/Salminen third place finish in the medal race not only bumped Clarke/Bjorn down a rung on the podium, it pushed twice Star World Champion and Olympic bronze medalist Xavier Rohart and his crew Pierre Alexis Ponsot off of the podium. Said Loof, 'I saw that Richard and Tyler were flagged and knew that I only had to put one boat between Xavier and I, so I went for it and pushed hard,' as Loof always does.

Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada were true to form today and won the medal race handily and put the final nail in the coffin regarding the gold medal. They won four of the eleven races in the series including the medal race and their final score (48 points) was less than half that of Loof/Salminen. Only two points separated second place from third place in the regatta and third place from fourth place overall. By never giving up and nosing out that extra boat on the finish line, Loof/Salminen shuffled the medal distribution.

US Sailing's 2011 Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta - Final

1. Scheidt/Prada (BRA) – 48
2. Loof/ Salminen (SWE) – 97
3. Clarke/Bjorn (CAN) – 99
4. Rohart/Ponsot (FRA) – 101
5. Mendelblatt/Fatih (USA) - 107

Complete Results here
Clarke and Bjorn Sailing Team here