Star World Championship - Silver for Team GBR duo

by Lindsey Bell on 12 May 2012 Star World Championship 2012 concluded in Hyeres, France, on Friday 11th May. Olympic Champions Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson insist their eyes are on a bigger prize after narrowly missing out on the title.

The British duo missed out on their second world title together to claim silver just two points behind perennial rivals Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada (BRA), after heading into the final day’s racing as series leaders.

The Brazilian pair secured the better start on Friday’s final day, before a 40-degree wind shift on the first leg left the Skandia Team GBR pair and their medal competition fighting it out in the middle of the 72-boat fleet.

This allowed Scheidt and Prada, with a better race discard than Percy and Simpson, to cover the Beijing gold medallists and prevent them from improving on their own discard of 17th from the previous day’s race. They finished in 38th forced them to count their race result from Thursday and knock them to second in the overall standings.

'It’s frustrating that we weren’t able to finish it off, but this is just a battle, not the war,' said the 35-year-old double Olympic gold medallist Percy.

The British pair had outlined broader goals heading into the World Championships in terms of their equipment choices and race preparations for the Olympic regatta in Weymouth and Portland, but Percy was nonetheless disappointed that the Brazilian pair had managed to pass them on the final day to claim their third World Championship title.

'It provides great motivation for the weeks ahead,' he concluded.

Percy and Simpson’s Skandia Team GBR training partners John Gimson and Anthony Shanks ended their regatta in 30th.

Meanwhile, Paul Goodison concluded his Laser World Championships in Boltenhagen, Germany, in 20thoverall after being on the receiving end of three yellow flag penalties from the jury for adjudged illegal kinetics of the boat.

'It’s been a pretty frustrating regatta for me in terms of the yellow flags early on, which I have to say I’ve been a bit surprised at,' the 34-year-old Goodison explained. 'I don’t feel that I’ve been doing anything differently in my sailing to justify them, but obviously the jury at these World Championships has seen that differently.

'In spite of those issues there were some positives to come out of the week, so I will have to take what lessons I can from this event forward into Skandia Sail for Gold and the Olympics.'

Skandia Team GBR’s three-time World Championship medallist Nick Thompson was forced to sit out of the Boltenhagen event after having his appendix Full results from the Star World Full results from the Laser World RYA website