Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page (AUS) have returned to the top of the Men’s 470 ISAF Sailing World Cup Standings after a convincing win at the Delta Lloyd Regatta.
The Australians won Race 7 in the morning to take a ten point lead over Sime Fantela and Igor Marenic (CRO) into the Medal Race. But it was the Greeks Panagiotis Kambouridis and Efstathios Papadopoulos who won the Medal Race by 50 seconds to clinch the silver medal whilst securing their highest ISAF Grade 1 event finish.
Nonetheless the world #1 ranked sailors did not fail to impress after moving from fourth to second on the final run and surging across the line in a photo finish with Sime Fantela and Igor Marenic (CRO) and Panagiotis Mantis and Pavlos Kagialis (GRE).
“The wind was up and down and all over the place. The competition was tight but in the end it worked well. We had many boats close to us in the results so we just sailed our own race.” explained the Australians.
Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout (NED) brought a nine point lead over Ai Kondo and Wakako Tabata (JPN) into the Women’s 470 Medal Race. But the Dutch girls had a poor start to the race and found themselves as low as ninth early on.
The duo had to call upon all their experience to climb back up the fleet and after doing so, they sailed conservatively to maintain their position. They crossed the finish line in fourth to clinch the gold medal.
“This is the first regatta for us for a long time so it is great to return like this. The racing was very close. There were lots of opportunities but it was also easy to make mistakes.”
Meanwhile Kondo and Tabata picked up the silver medal to climb up to second in Women’s 470 ISAF Sailing World Cup Standings.
Martine Grael and Isabel Swan won bronze medal for their first podium finish together.
Henriette Koch and Lene Sommer finished fifth at the Delta Lloyd Regatta and move up to third place in the Women’s 470 Standings on 51 points.
Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada (BRA) have been in fantastic form throughout the 2010-2011 ISAF Sailing World Cup. The Brazilian Star pair won gold at US SAILING’s Rolex Miami OCR and the Semaine Olympique Française. And they added the Delta Lloyd Regatta gold medal to their growing collection after a 17 point victory over Mateusz Kusznierewicz and Dominik Zycki (POL).
“We had a consistent series in Medemblik. We are glad that this morning we did survive with no breakage. We lost one of our main competitor with the British retiring after they brake the mast, but in the medal race lots of things can happen.” explained Scheidt. About the muscly conditions in Medemblik Bruno Prada adds: “We had many regattas without strong breeze and we like it so it was good for us.” The pair who have been winning in Hyères in medium conditions is performing in all kind of weather. “We have been training hard over the last six months so it does make the difference.” says Prada.
Last year Sailing World Cup winners the Norwegians Melleby/Pedersen takes third place overall.
The Star medal race was sailed with eight boats. The british team of Percy/Simpson and Polish Grabowski//Lesinki had broke their mast in the morning race and could not start the medal race.
In the Women Match Racing semi finals, Groeneveld (NED) came back to the score from 0-2 against Tunnicliffe (USA) to 3-2 and qualify in the finals on Sunday.
Lehtinen (FIN) had a clean take in the second semi-finals winning 3-0 against Wang (CHN).
The Final and Petite Final will be sailed on Sunday .
Sunday the 49ers will start their Medal race at 9am, followed by the other classes. In the meantime, the sailors ranked11 and over will race a final race. The forecast is again for strong breeze.
All Medal races and Women match racing finals will be broadcast live with 3D tracking from the event website.
Fonte: Delta Lloyd Regatta
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