Athens 2004 - Day 13 preview
by Sacha Oswald, RYA 27 Aug 2004 07:04 AEST
Five medals for GB sailing at 2004 Olympic Games
49er sailors Chris Draper and Simon Hiscocks today won Great Britain’s fifth sailing medal, repeating the team’s performance in Sydney and again crowning Great Britain as the most successful sailing nation for the second Olympics in a row.
The conditions were tricky for the final race, and the Brits had already claimed a bronze medal going into the race and therefore had nothing to lose and everything to gain. They sailed a steady race working their way through the fleet to finish in sixth place overall, unfortunately Rodion Luka and George Leonchuck of Ukraine, who they had to beat if they had any chance of moving up the scoreboard, were out in front and crossed the line third with the Brits three places behind. This saw the Ukraine’s secure silver and the British duo won the bronze medal.
The Spanish pairing of Iker Martinez and Xavier Fernandez sailed a fantastic series over the sixteen races, scoring just three results outside the top ten, to win the gold medal.
For Draper it was a fantastic achievement at his first Olympic Games and for Hiscocks, his second Olympic medal, adding to the silver medal he won in Sydney.
Hiscocks said, “We are happy, we are a little down today because we went out to have a race today that was between three boats and we lost it and we kind of feel despondent about that, but I am sure that tomorrow morning we will feel different. We have already had a day with it sinking in that we have won a medal and we are happy. It has been a long, hard event and we have come away from it with something.”
Whilst all the action was happening on the 49er course, both the Star and Tornado fleets finally got underway after a postponement as the race committee waited for the wind to fill in. Great Britain’s Iain Percy and Steve Mitchell placed well in the first race, gradually moving their way up the fleet to finish in seventh place. The second race didn’t quite go their way, after they got into a tussle on the start line, which slowed them down, they trailed the fleet and eventually finished seventeenth. This result was a huge disappointment for the team as it meant that their dreams of an Olympic medal were shattered.
Percy commented, “I am gutted. I honestly thought that we would get a medal here. We didn’t mess it up but we didn’t sail our best and made two mistakes that cost us a medal. We thought we could do better and that is what is so hard today.”
Brazilian Torben Grael, sailing with Marcelo Ferreira, sailed into the history books today when he secured the gold medal and with it the accolade of being the first person to win five medals at an Olympic Games.
The Brits were having similar luck in the Tornado fleet where Leigh McMillan and Mark Bulkeley finished fifteenth and sixteenth in their two races of the day. This leaves them in thirteenth place overall with one race left to sail. Roman Hagara and Hans Peter Steinacher of Austria currently lead the fleet by three points over American’s Charlie Ogletree and John Lovell.
RYA Olympic Manager Stephen Park commented, “We have won a fifth medal which we know we had secured a few days ago. Despite the fact that we have five medals we have a low feeling as we were hoping we could do better than bronze in the 49er class and hoped that the Stars would be challenging for medals on Saturday. It didn’t blow in our favour today but we certainly can not be disappointed with five medals.”
Tomorrow sees the two classes on a rest day before the final day of the regatta on Saturday. The closing ceremony to the 2004 Olympic Games takes place on the 29 August.
Results after day 13:
Star
1, Torben Grael/Marcelo Ferreira, BRA (5,4,1,1,2,5,2,7,(11),4) 31 pts
2, Xavier Rohart/Pascal Rambeau, FRA (3,9,6,(15),7,2,4,12,3,1) 47 pts
3, Ross MacDonald/Mike Wolfs, CAN (7,11,4,3,1,5.2/RDG,8,(14),8,2) 49.2 pts
GBR
7, Iain Percy/Steve Mitchell (8,3,12,9,6,3,16,5,7,(17)) 69 pts
Tornado
1, Roman Hagara/Hans Peter Steinacher, AUT (1,3,8,1,(14),8,4,1,2,5) 33 pts
2, Charlie Ogletree/John Lovell, USA (2,2,1,6(9),9,6,7,1,2) 36 pts
3, Santiago Lange/Carlos Espinola, ARG (7,1,6,5,6,(11),5,8,4,3) 45 pts
GBR
13, Leigh McMillan/Mark Bulkeley (8,14,(17),12,7,14,8,3,16,15) 97 pts
49er
1, Iker Martinez/Xavier Fernandez, ESP (3,11,7,5,1,(12),2,6,(12),1,8,2,8,2,4,7) 67 pts GOLD
2, Rodion Luka/George Leonchuck, UKR (4,(15),3,7,2,(10),7,5,9,5,3,10,6,5,3,3) 72 pts SILVER
3, Chris Draper/Simon Hiscocks, GBR (8,5,6,3,10,8,1,(13),(11),8,2,4,1,9,6,6) 77 pts BRONZE
Mistral Women
1, Faustine Merret FRA (2,(13),1,4,2,4,4,5,4,3,2) 31 pts GOLD
2, Yin Jian, CHN ((11),6,2,6,4,1,1,1,2,9,1) 33 pts SILVER
3 , Alessandra Sensini, ITA ((7),1,6,3,1,2,3,6,3,2,7) 34 pts BRONZE
GBR
9, Natasha Sturges ((16),10,3,9,9,15,12,11,15,11,9) 103 pts
Mistral Men
1, Gal Fridman, ISR ((8),3,5,5,1,7,5,1,8,5,2) 42 pts GOLD
2, Nikolaos Kaklamanakis, GRE (1,4,4,(14),6,13,2,3,5,4,10) 52 pts SILVER
3, Nick Dempsey, GBR (2,11,(15),10,2,9,1,10,1,6,1) 53 pts BRONZE
Laser
1, Robert Scheidt, BRA (3,8,1,3,8,4,(19),12,7,3,6) 55 pts GOLD
2, Andreas Geritzer, AUT (4,1,(34),7,1,2,12,15,12,4,10) 68 pts SILVER
3, Vasilij Zbogar, SLO ((21),13,3,8,4,1,14,1,14,5,13) 76 pts BRONZE
GBR
4, Paul Goodison (13,3,(28),5,11,7,1,9,8,7,17) 81 pts
Europe
1, Siren Sundby, NOR (1,3,(DSQ),1,19,4,4,1,1,1, 12) 47 pts GOLD
2, Lenka Smidova, CZE (10,13,1,13,1,(26),1,6,3,7,10) 65 pts SILVER
3, Signe Livbjerg, DEN (4,6,7,15,8,6,10,3,11,4,(25)) 74 pts BRONZE
GBR
22, Laura Baldwin (21,14,9,23,20,22,(25),22,23,21,4) 178 pts
Yngling
1, Shirley Robertson/Sarah Ayton/Sarah Webb, GBR (5,4,1,1,4,3,4,6,3,8,(DNC)) 39 pts GOLD
2, Ruslana Taran/Ganna Kalinina/Svitlana Matevusheva, UKR (10,3,9,3,7,2,2,9,1,(16),5) 50 pts SILVER
3, Dorte O. Jensen/Helle Jespersen/Christina Otzen, DEN (1,14,5,5,5,6,3,4,6,5,(OCS)) 54 pts BRONZE
Finn
1, Ben Ainslie, GBR (9,(DSQ),1,1,4,1,2,3,2,1,14) 38 pts GOLD
2, Rafael Trujillo, ESP (8,3,3,6,2,3,(OCS),4,5,2,13) 51 pts SILVER
3, Mateusz Kusznierewicz, POL (3,1,6,4,11,(OCS),17,1,7,4,1) 53 pts BRONZE
470 Men
1, Paul Foerster/Kevin Burnham, USA (1,8,2,15,9,4,3,7,18,4,(22)) 71 pts GOLD
2, Nick Rogers/Joe Glanfield, GBR (2,3,9,4,18,5,2,3,10,19,(23)) 74 pts SILVER
3, Kazuto Seki/Kenjiro Todoroki, JPN (3,7,(21),18,7,12,1,9,2,3,11) 90 pts BRONZE
470 Women
1, Sofia Bekatorou/Aimilia Tsoulfa, GRE (1,2,2,13,1,1,14,1,1,2,(21)) 38 pts GOLD
2, Natalia Via-Dufresne/Sandra Azon ESP (2,4,9,15,(19),5,8,3,5,6,5) 62 pts SILVER
3, Therese Torgersson/Vendela Zachrisson SWE (9,10,7,2,3,(14),9,6,7,7,3) 63 pts BRONZE
GBR
7, Christina Bassadone/Katherine Hopson (5,14,15,4,5,6,17,(21),2,16,7) 91 pts
You can follow the racing online at www.gbrsailing.org.uk where you will get live updates from the dinghy park and the results as they come in, as well as all the gossip from the Team GB camp. You can also leave messages of support for the team and your comments on the racing.