NZL Sailing Team has four medal chances on final day of ISAF Worlds

by Sail-World on 17 Dec 2011
The NZL Sailing Team will contest the medal races of four events on the final day of the ISAF World Sailing Championships in Perth.

All told NZ sailors have made the medal races in six of the nine events contested, which is a very encouraging result going into the 2012 Olympics. The team has qualified for the Olympics in all nine events contested. However to date has not won medals at the regatta, and all five crews contesting the four events lie outside the top three overall. But at least three have good chances of picking up bronze or silver medals.

On Sunday the first class, the Womens Doublehander (470) will have their warning signal at 1310hrs local time or 1810hrs (NZT). Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie will be competing. Currently they are lying in fourth place, just one point behind the third placed British crew - meaning that in the double scoring medal race they have to just beat the Brits and stay ahead of the fifth and sixth placed crews. Potentially they could finish in second overall, however that would require beating Gill Cohen and Vered Buskla (ISR) by four places and holding out their other close rivals as well.

Next up is the Mens Skiff (49er) with their warning signal at 1410hrs local time (1910hrs NZT). NZ crew of Peter Burling and Blair Tuke are in fourth place overall, three points away from top British crew of John Pink and Rick Peacock, with a seven point margin back to the fifth placed crew. To win the bronze medal, Blurling and Tuke will have to beat the British pair by two places, and to win the silver medla they would need to beat the Danish crew of brothers Emil and Simon Toft Nielsen by four places.

Two New Zealand competitors will contest the Mens Windsurfer (RS:X) at 1510hrs (Warning signal) or 2010hrs NZT.

2008 Olympic Gold medalist, Tom Ashley lies in fifth place overall - 8pts behind the third placed Polish competitor, and will need to beat him by five places to snatch the bronze medal. A second NZ competitor, JP Tobin is sixth overall - 13pts away from third, and would need to finish seven places ahead, plus get Ashley and Nimrod Mashich (ISR) tied up in knots. Tobin has been sailing with part of a poisonous fish spine in his foot all week - his foot is badly swollen, but to remove the spine would require stitches in his foot, which would rule him out of the regatta. He will be doing well to improve on his current place.

The last event, the Mens Singlehander (Laser) is ostensibly NZ's best chance of a medal, with Andrew Murdoch lying in fifth place, but tied on points for fourth, and one point behind third placed Nick Thompson (GBR). The 2008 Olympic Gold medalist Paul Goodison lies in sixth place overall, and is sixth points behind Murdoch - a useful buffer. Essentially Murdoch has to beat Thompson and fourth placed Andreas Geritzer (AUT), to win the bronze medal, and if he can do that and beat the second placed competitor by three places, then he has a good shot at winning the silver medal.

At 1610hrs local time (2110hrs NZT), the warning signal for the Laser will be flown. Australian Tom Slingsby leads by a massive 14 point margin and would need to finish eighth or worse to let the world title out of the bag.

All four medal races can be watched live on www.perth2011.com and follow the buttons for Live TV