ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Championship - Off to a good start

by Craig Heydon on 27 Jun 2012 Australian sailors Olivia Price, Nina Curtis and Lucinda Whitty are off to a perfect start at the 2012 ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Championship in Sweden with four wins from four races on the opening day.

Price, Curtis and Whitty ended day one in a four way tie for the lead of their group after the top four crews all recorded wins against the lower ranked crews.

The Australians picked up wins against Mandy Mulder of the Netherlands, French crews of Julie Bossard and Anne-Claire Le Berre and local sailor Anna Kjellberg.

'We started the World Championships with a solid day on the water with four wins and no losses on the scorecard,' said Price. 'It was light winds and quite a variable day here. 'Our first race of the day against Le Berre was abandoned due to a race committee error, which in turn gave us a good chance to warm up for the day,' she said.

'The four races against Mulder, Bossard, Kjellberg and Le Berre were great for us to continue our systems onboard, especially after our past two weeks of solid training in Weymouth.'

On Wednesday Price and crew will race against two American crews, including reigning World Champion Anna Tunnicliffe and Sally Barkow and Russian sailor Ekaterina Skudina.

'Tomorrow is going to be similar conditions, and so it will be a good chance to finish the last three races of the group, against some top competitors before the gold group is announced after racing,' said Price.

'The format is slightly different to the World Cups, where the top four from each group go through to a gold group round robin and the top four teams will then compete in the semi finals.'

Results here

Australian Sailing Team website