Winners decided

Paul Brotherton reports from the final day of racing at the 470 world Championship

Coaches bleat on about World Championships being won and lost by the smallest of margins. The Australian men Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page seemed to disprove that theory yesterday with their emphatic win. However, any of the medalists in the Womens Class at this, elongated 470 World Championships, will never need reminding again.

The eventual winners Marcelien de Koning and Lobke Berkhout of the Netherlands, tried just about everything to relinquish their early lead. Christina Bassadone and Sakia Clark the Team GBR sailors, had a chance to win even at the last leeward gate. And the extremely unfortunate French Team of Ingrid Petitjean and Nadage Douroux will wish they had left room for a bus and not just enough for a 470 at the finish line yesterday.

This incident and the resulting protest has defined the contest. I have seen the video but did not see the incident "live". The camera was positioned to windward and across the boats, allowing a good view of the overlaps but not the distance between the boats. In essence the jury found that the French left such little room that the Dutch lost control and could not avoid hitting the finish boat. The alternative view is that the Dutch employed poor boat handling and hit the finish when it was possible to pass. This was my initial reaction on viewing the tape. The fact of the matter is; if the French had come away another boat length they may have lost that place but would still have been winning going into the final day. After the dsq they were ten points adrift and in this small fleet that was too much of a deficit.

As it was the Dutch led the Brits by three points at the start of the first of two races today. Both boats got ordinary starts but it was the Brits who tore the first windward leg to shreds, stepping into every shift and profiting from three boats being pulled out as OCS at mark one. As the Dutch struggled again to find their form, Bassadone and Clark moved into overdrive, slipping past another boat on the last reach meant they took a point lead into the last race.

The last race was a corker. The early advantage was with the British boat, who led at the weather mark. Employing reasonable patience they delayed their hoist on the first tight reach. The Dutch in sixth had no option but attack and hoist early, the wind angle opened and the Dutch took a huge lump out of the Brits. At the turn mark the top six boats had compressed. The wind blanket swallowed the Brits, the Dutch slid down the inside. The Brits found some air and at the leeward gate the Brits rounded the right hand bouy (looking downwind) and headed inshore. Not unlike a pair of synchronised divers the Dutch simultaneously rounded the opposite bouy and headed offshore. In a short space of time it was clear that the Dutch had the better breeze and angle. A two hundred meter lead at the next mark was the result. In spite of having to rag the kite and luff hard on the last reach to avoid a happy cruiser the girls took the bullet and with it a massive release of emotion.

"We made it about as hard as we could." a relieved and delighted De Koning admitted. "We knew we could do it but we didn't expect it, not at all. We led by so much so early and the regatta was so long, we just went crazy."

Having obliterated the fleet Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page obliterated themselves last night, they rested this morning. In their absence Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield laid claim to the Silver Medal. This result, combined with winning the light air Europeans for the second year running and the Silver they collected in Athens can leave little doubt that the British No one team will take some beating when they "profile" for the big event in 2008. French Olympians Gildas Phillippe and Nicholas Leberre maintained third and collected the bronze medal.

After a long and challenging week, two World Champions have been crowned in very different styles.

Results:

Pos-Nationality Helm/Crew, Points

Men

1-AUS Nathan Wilmot and Malcom Page, 35
2-GBR Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield, 51
3-FRA Gildas Philippe and Nicolas Leberre, 62
4-AUS Matthew Belcher and Nick Behrens, 73
5-POR Alvaro Marinho and Miguel Nunes, 79

Women

1-NED Marcelien de Koning and Lobke Berkhout, 32
2-GBR Christina Bassadone and Saskia Clark, 32
3-FRA Ingrid Petitjean and Nadege Douroux, 42
4-CZE Lenka Smidova and Elizabeth Kratzig, 57
5-ISR Nike Kornecki and Vered Bouskila,71