Consistent Aussies

As France takes the lead in the women's division at the 470 World Championships in La Rochelle

Tuesday August 6th 2013, Author: James Boyd, Location: none selected

The five race qualification stage today decided the division of teams advancing to the gold, silver and bronze fleets for the finals stage at the 2013 470 World Championships.

A light and shifty breeze kept teams ashore until mid-afternoon, with the first races getting underway around 1600 hours. The qualification stage discard kicked in after race 4, so some manoeuvring up and down the leaderboard, with race 5 the final opportunity for teams to push themselves to either consolidate or advance their positions ahead of the final stage fleet cut.

470 Men

Mat Belcher/Will Ryan did everything they needed to position themselves in first on the leaderboard by winning race 4, so opted not to sail race 5 and headed back to shore. The pair advance to the final stage of racing with an optimum 0 point carry forward scoreline, as they seek to extend their run of event victories and achieve their first World Championship title together.

Second placed Pierre Leboucher/Nicolas Le Berre are amongst the many renowned French 470 sailors in the fleet, and the hopes of French sailing are stacked in favour of this pair to be amongst the medallists come Saturday. Leboucher finished with the silver medal at the 2012 470 Worlds and represented France at the 2012 Olympics with his former crew. Also pushing up the leaderboard today are the 2013 470 European Champions Sofian Bouvet/Jeremie Mion who move up to 4th from 8th yesterday.

Le Berre was in some pain last week due to a knee injury which made it doubtful whether the pair would be able to race. “We are happy because I was injured last week and it is good satisfaction for me to be here and have such a good beginning to the series,” he said.

“Yesterday was perfect conditions for 470, with planning upwind and 15 knots was great for us,” Le Berre explained. “Today there is less wind, but it has been really interesting for strategy and tactics. We had a good time on the water.”

Despite being a bit further back on the leaderboard, the team of the day award goes to Argentina’s Lucas Calabrese/Juan de la Fuente, the 2012 Olympic bronze medallists. The pair converted their lowly 54th place on the leaderboard going into the day, after a starting error gave them a penalty in race 2, to 14th on the leaderboard from two second place finishes.

“Yesterday was not a good day for us,” commented de la Fuente. ”Today, we had to two top fifteen results to make it through to the gold, so we are pretty happy. We now go to the finals, and with 7 races it is a long way to go still. Today was around 10 knots, so everyone was really racing close, but we managed to round the first upwind mark in the top 5 in both races and from then it was pretty clear for us.”

Similar to several teams, the pair have just returned from a training session in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and arrived in La Rochelle only a few days ahead of the Championship.

The top 39 boats on the leaderboard advance to the gold fleet and are in contention for the podium places, with 39 teams in each of the silver and bronze fleets.

Top 50 results:

Pos	Sail	Helm	Crew	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	Tot	Net
1	AUS 11	BELCHER Mat	RYAN Will	1	1	2	1	BFD	43	2
2	FRA 44	LEBOUCHER Pierre	LE BERRE Nicolas	7	1	1	5	3	15	8
3	NZL 2	SNOW-HANSEN Paul	WILLCOX Daniel	5	4	1	3	2	14	9
4	FRA 27	BOUVET Sofian	MION Jeremie	3	3	5	8	1	19	11
5	GBR 861	ROGERS Nicholas	WILLIS Elliot	2	4	4	2	4	16	12
6	GBR 863	PATIENCE Luke	GLANFIELD Joe	1	9	3	5	6	23	14
7	GER 55	WAGNER Jasper	BALDEWEIN Dustin	5	2	9	10	1	26	16
8	GRE 1	MANTIS Panaglotis	KAGIALIS Pavlos	8	2	1	6	12	28	16
9	SWE 349	DAHLBERG Anton	BERGSTROM Fredrik	4	5	3	12	7	31	19
10	USA 1713	MONAY Stu	HUGUES Dave	1	10	7	4	9	30	20
11	AUT 437	BARGEHR David	MAHR Lukas	2	16	10	5	3	36	20
12	GER 10	GERZ Ferdinand	FOLLMANN Patrick	3	4	6	20	7	40	20
13	AUT 3	SCHMID Matthias	REICHSTAEDTER Florian	4	5	2	12	10	33	21
14	ARG 7	CALABRESE Lucas	DE LA FUENTE Juan	14	OCS	5	2	2	64	23
15	ITA 29	SIVITZ KOSUTA Simon	FARNETI Jas	4	5	2	14	23	48	25
16	ESP 9	BARREIROS RODRIGUEZ Onan	CURBELO CABRERA Juan	6	9	8	3	11	37	26
17	ESP 769	MARTINEZ DORESTE Jorge	SARMIENTO PADILLA Aaron	13	6	9	6	5	39	26
18	CRO 83	FANTELA Sime	MARENIC Igor	2	8	3	15	16	44	28
19	JPN 12	MATSUNAGA Tetsuya	YOSHIDA Yugo	5	6	7	11	BFD	70	29
20	FRA 34	SKOCZEK BERNARD Gabriel	NEBOUT JAVAL Achille	3	17	10	1	18	48	30
21	SUI 16	BRAUCHLI Yannick	HAUSSER Romuald	15	7	8	1	BFD	71	30
22	FRA 21	QUIROGA Pierre	PEQUIN Clement	18	10	14	4	3	49	31
23	POR 7	MATOS ROSA Antonio	SCHEDEL Ricardo	6	6	12	20	7	51	31
24	AUS 6	CONWAY Alexander	CONWAY Patrick	8	1	10	14	24	56	32
25	GRE 333	KAVVAS Alexander	KAVVAS Giorgio	14	20	15	3	2	54	34
26	GER 15	AUTENRIETH Julian	AUTENRIETH Philipp	11	12	6	17	5	51	34
27	ISR 17	COHEN Gal	FROYLICHE Dan	14	23	13	4	4	58	35
28	JPN 4421	DOI Kazuto	IMAMURA Kiminiko	10	14	4	32	9	69	37
29	BRA 1	MENDES Gelson	THIESEN Gustavo	7	12	11	7	26	63	37
30	CAN 6	SAUNDERS Jacob	SAUNDERS Graeme	11	7	8	11	16	53	37
31	GBR 843	WOOD Mike	BRAYSHAW Hugh	12	2	4	25	20	63	38
32	RSA 10	ASENATHI Jim	HUDSON Roger	16	3	7	13	15	54	38
33	RUS 5	SOZYKIN Pavel	GRIBANOV Denis	9	3	9	26	19	66	40
34	ITA 2	ZANDONA Gabrio	DE FELICE Lorenzo	13	13	20	8	6	60	40
35	FRA 8	PEPONNET Kevin	LEBRUN Julien	7	13	13	7	BFD	81	40
36	FIN 7	LINDGREN Joonas	LINDGREN Niklas	6	14	12	9	BFD	82	41
37	CHN 1267	LAN Hao	WANG Chao	13	13	6	18	13	63	45
38	FRA 4	GUILBAUD Vianney	GUILLARM Vincent	17	9	5	16	18	65	47
39	AUS 5	CRAWFORD Matthew	CRAWFORD Robert	9	7	11	22	BFD	90	49
40	TUR 1	CINAR Deniz	CINR Ates	9	8	19	23	14	73	50
41	UKR 67	ZHURAVLOV Yuri	MATSUYEV Pavlo	17	11	11	11	DPI	79	50
42	SWE 350	FOCK Carl-Fredrik	DACKHAMMAR Marcus	22	17	28	15	1	82	54
43	FRA 20	MOYSAN Louis	BERTHIER Baptiste	15	14	18	21	8	76	55
44	POR 1	PIRES Gonçalo	NUNES Miguel	16	8	17	14	BFD	96	55
45	GRE 10	PAPOUTSOGLOU Vasilelos	ORFANOS Ioannis	19	22	14	7	17	79	57
46	BRA 37	PILLAR Fabio	MELECCHI Mathias	20	11	18	9	26	84	58
47	GER 50	STUCKL Julian	SZYMANSKI Olivier	10	OCS	15	19	14	99	58
48	SLO 18	GULIC Andraz	NEVENY Mitja	24	OCS	16	10	10	101	60
49	GER 75	NAUJOCK Denny	KUEBEL Paul	10	23	20	17	13	83	60
50	FRA 15	BERTRAND Martin	LARA Xavier	21	11	19	17	13	81	60

470 Women

The 470 European Champions, Camille Lecointre/Mathilde Geron from France, have moved into the overall lead and will carry forward a bonus 0 point scorecard into the finals stage which gets underway tomorrow.

Just behind them and advancing to the final stage with a 2 point position are China’s Xiaomei Xu/Chunyan Yu who finished in 7, 1 today. This pair were absent from the international racing scene after losing out on selection to represent China at the Olympics, returning with impressive form in January to finish in third at ISAF Sailing World Cup Miami and following up with a 5th at ISAF Sailing World Cup Palma.

Their training mainly takes place in China, and so far they are blasting the competition here in La Rochelle. “Our performance is as a result of our continued training,” explained Xu. “Our focus is totally on the starting line, to watch the conditions, wind speed, shifts and we focus to get a good start.” Practice makes perfect, and this pair delivered in race 5 leading the fleet from start to finish.

Defending World Champions Hannah Mills/Saskia Clark from Great Britain are up in third overall and wrapped up their qualification stage with a win in the yellow fleet. Wednesday’s first day of finals will be the first time they come face to face with the series leaders Lecointre/Geron, and with the top 27 women’s teams up against each other from tomorrow onwards, expect a few leaderboard shifts.

Sarah Cook, the 2012 Olympic rower who has jumped to sailing in partnership with 2008 Olympic gold medal helm Elise Rechichi from Australia, scored her first ever race win, which had a broad beam on her face. “I guess it is good to know we have the speed and have some good skills and can start to get a gauge of how far we have come in the last 9 months, since I changed over from rowing,” said Cook. “It is good confirmation for us that we are on the right track and we are happy to be through to gold fleet to start tomorrow.”

The pair have trained hard since the 470 Europeans which took place in Italy in mid-July, including onsite training in La Rochelle over the past three weeks. “We have improved massively since Formia,” continued Cook. “I think for me now I have a good handle on most of the tasks and what we are trying to achieve at certain moments, so that was the key to get my confidence up so that I would know what we are trying to achieve on every point of the course. As it turns out, my feel has been relatively good from the get go, so to now get the results is really exciting for us.” The team advance through to the finals stage in 12th on the leaderboard.

Results top 50

Pos	Sail	Helm	Crew	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	Tot	Net
1	FRA 9	LECOINTRE Camille	GERON Mathilde	1	1	5	1	3	8	3
2	CHN 616	XU Xiaomei	YU Chunyan	3	3	1	7	1	13	6
3	GBR 118	MILLS Hannah	CLARK Saskia	3	2	4	11	1	20	9
4	NZL 75	ALEH Jo	POWRIE Polly	2	1	1	18	8	28	10
5	GBR 862	WEGUELIN Sophie	MC INTYRE Eilidh	2	8	3	6	2	21	13
6	NED 216	KYRANAKOU Afrodite	VAN VEEN Anneloes	5	3	3	12	6	29	17
7	GER 72	BOCHMANN Annika	PANUSCHKA Elisabeth	7	4	2	8	11	32	21
8	CHN 1221	WANG Xiaoli	HUANG Xufeng	6	5	10	2	8	31	21
9	BRA 177	OLIVEIRA Fernanda	BARBACHAN Ana	1	10	12	5	7	34	22
10	BRA 18	DECNOP Renata	SWAN Isabel	8	4	7	3	15	37	22
11	AUT 431	VADLAU Lara	OGAR Jolanta	4	OCS	9	5	4	50	22
12	AUS 1	RECHICHI Elise	COOK Sarah	5	23	10	1	10	48	25
13	CRO 111	NINCEVIC Enia	ZUPAN Romana	OCS	6	11	7	2	54	26
14	RUS 97	KIRILYUK Alisa	DMITRIEVA Liudmilla	11	5	8	4	9	37	26
15	SLO 64	MRAK Tina	MACAROL Veronika	4	7	9	6	13	39	26
16	NED 6	BROEKHUIZEN Michelle	HUMEL Josca	6	14	18	4	3	45	27
17	JPN 1	YOSHIDA Ai	YOSHIOKA Miho	13	22	5	3	6	49	27
18	GBR 865	SEABRIGTH Amy	CARPENTER Anna	14	8	6	2	12	42	28
19	SWE 348	ERICSON Lisa	GABRIELSSON Astrid	10	12	2	14	5	43	29
20	FRA 22	BLANDIN Cassandre	MERY DE BELLEGARDE Charlotte	8	9	18	10	4	49	31
21	CHN 1211	CAI Liping	GAO Yang	9	9	4	10	18	50	32
22	USA 1712	HAEGER Anne	PROVANCHA Briana	OCS	11	8	8	7	62	34
23	POL 11	SKRZYPULEC Agnieszka	WOJCIK Natalia	7	10	6	21	17	61	40
24	AUS 21	GURR Jacqueline	CATT Amelia	12	14	7	13	11	57	43
25	USA 88	BOLGER Sydney	SHEVITZ Carly	13	2	OCS	9	21	73	45
26	UKR 93	KYSELOVA Anna	KRASKO Anastasia	9	13	13	11	13	59	46
27	ITA 16	CAPUTO Roberta	PAOLILLO Giulia	OCS	7	11	20	14	80	52
28	GBR 849	FREEMAN Joanna	TOMSETT Katie	10	12	17	15	OCS	82	54
29	GER 24	BOHN Nadine	GOLTZER Karoline	18	11	15	17	12	73	55
30	ESP 133	GALLEGO Marina	REYES Fatima	12	6	OCS	23	15	84	56
31	AUS 12	RYAN Sasha	RYAN Jaime	20	13	12	OCS	14	87	59
32	CHI 2	HORWITZ Nadja	GUMUCIO Bregona	16	18	14	12	19	79	60
33	GRE 44	STEFANOUDAKI Despoina	KLONARIDOU Rafalina	15	15	14	21	16	81	60
34	GBR 853	BURNET Anna	BENNETT-LLYOD Bryony	24	18	17	9	18	86	62
35	ITA 52	KOMATAR Francesca	CARRARO Sveva	17	17	22	18	10	84	62
36	EST 20	UMB Marjaliisa	UMB Elise	15	16	15	16	16	78	62
37	GRE 11	PAGIDA Dimitra	STRATIDGIOU Alina	23	16	OCS	19	5	91	63
38	FIN 141	LINDQVIST Rosa	TAKALA Annina	14	24	20	20	9	87	63
39	ESP 27	PUMARIEGA Angela	MATEO Carmen	19	19	13	24	17	92	68
40	CZE 7	CHUDEJOVA Hana	MRZILKOVA Lenka	20	15	25	14	19	93	68
41	GBR 838	LAVERY Jess	BRICKWOOD Megan	21	17	21	13	20	92	71
42	ISR 11	BAR-AM Noya	MAMAN Danielle	17	21	19	15	20	92	71
43	ISR 77	ZAMET Tsuf	BIRAN Lisa	16	22	16	17	26	97	71
44	ESP 6	BOU SERRA Alba	SUBIRA FELIP Julia	18	21	16	22	23	100	77
45	POR 2	CARMO Sara	PINHEIRO DE MELO Matilde	11	19	23	OCS	25	106	78
46	AUS 4	SHEPARD Lucy	PATERSON Aurora	21	23	20	16	21	101	78
47	RUS 1	GUSEVA Anastasia	STOKOLESOVA Yana	19	20	21	22	22	104	82
48	ESP 2	TORO Sofia	AMARO Pilar	23	24	24	19	22	112	88
49	GER 5000	JANSSEN Catrin	HILLER Jana	22	25	19	23	24	113	88
50	HUN 91	SIPOS Orsolya	SIPOS Zsofia	22	20	22	25	24	113	88