Womens Match Racing at London 2012 - Day 6: Brits book quarters spot
by RYA 4 Aug 2012 12:58 PDT
4 August 2012
The British Match Race Girls admitted it was a “massive relief” after booking a quarter-final showdown against Russia at the Olympic Sailing Regatta next Tuesday (7 August).
The Poole trio of Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor progressed through to the knockout phase of the London 2012 Women’s Match Racing event despite slipping to defeat against their final round robin opponents, Netherlands and USA, at Weymouth and Portland today (Saturday 4 August).
The Brits, who are seeded seventh, will now face the second seed Russian team of Ekaterina Skudina, Elena Syuzeva and Elena Oblova, who defeated the Brits in the round robin on Wednesday. But the girls insist that with a couple of rest days now, they will regroup and start afresh in the quarter-finals.
Kate said: “It is a massive relief to get through to the quarters, I think we are all feeling it now. But like Lucy said to us we start again on Tuesday, it’s a fresh fleet and it doesn’t matter what has happened so much in the Round Robin. We will just look to progress forward from now on.”
Lucy said: “It’s not exactly been the round we would have liked; we would have liked to be a bit higher up the rankings going into the quarters. The results have been really mixed and the main thing is that we are through. We have now got another chance to start again and progress on through hopefully.”
After losing out to the Dutch trio of Renee Groeneveld, Annemieke Bes, Marcelien Bos-De Koning in their first race of the day, the girls set about their second race against the American favourites, skippered by British-born Anna Tunnicliffe, in determined fashion. The Brits enjoyed a good start, forcing the USA to tack on the first beat and engaged in close battle. But again it was Tunnicliffe who won out.
Annie added: “It was a tight race against the Americans; it was the sort of race we would expect against that sort of opposition. We made big mistakes in some other matches in which we should have done better in, but racing Anna is always going to be like that. It’s always good fun, always and going to come down to the wire at the end, but unfortunately we didn’t get the win.”
In the quarter final matches, and all rounds beyond that, the winner of each knockout tie will be the first boat to score three points. The quarter-finals winners qualify for the semi-finals and the losers go through to the 5-8 sail off.
Match racers are in action on more days than any other class and are not only one of the first classes to start but the last class to finish with the match racing final bringing the curtain down on the 2012 Olympic Regatta on Saturday 11 August.
The Olympic Sailing Regatta runs from Sunday 29 July – Saturday 11 August.
www.rya.org.uk/london2012