Gold for Tunnicliffe, silver for Macgregor

Grand finale for the Women's Match Racing at Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships

Anna Tunnicliffe and her US crew of Debbie Capozzi and Molly Vandemoer secured the Women’s Match Racing final at the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championship on Fremantle’s Inner Harbour today against Lucy Macgregor’s British crew.

Hailed the ‘comeback queens’ after their dramatic semi-final turnaround on Thursday, Macgregor, Annie Lush and sister Kate Macgregor couldn’t quite find the same magic in today’s final, ending with a 0-4 scoreline.

The British defending World Champions - and seemingly crowd favourites – were put on the back foot in the opening race when they picked up two penalties allowing Tunnicliffe to take an early lead, and were handed a further penalty in the pre-start of the second to leave them chasing the world number one-ranked crew.

The Skandia Team GBR trio put up a determined fight, even when faced with 0-3 deficit, but the tough US team edged the win in each match to be crowned 2011 World Champions.

“I think we have pretty mixed emotions right now,” said 25-year-old helm Lucy, whose team had to come through an epic 43 matches over 14 days in Fremantle – the most of any crew – to claim their Championship silver. “We were really pleased with the fight that went on out on the water and there was some really close racing. We made some big mistakes getting some penalties but without them we’d have been looking very strong today and the scoreline could have looked quite different.

Annie Lush added: “It’s certainly been some good training for the Olympics! We’ve had quite a lot of different conditions and we’re really pleased with how we’ve been sailing. I think everyone saw our speed out there was good, we’re sailing the boat well and there are just a couple of mistakes to iron out before next year but we’ve got a few months. Just a little bit more and we’ll take her!”

“We’ve had a lot of ups and downs this year, starting with me being out of sailing injured at the beginning of the year, a new coach and a lot of new things this year and I think that’s all really come together [here].

“It was just so much fun sailing today, we were so excited to be out there and I can’t wait to see where we can get to for next year.”
The match racing trio’s silver takes Skandia Team GBR’s medal tally at these World Championships to four – one gold, two silver and one bronze – with two days of competition still to go.

The victor, Beijing Laser Radial gold medallist Anna Tunnicliffe said: “It’s amazing, we’ve put a lot of effort into this year and had a lot of big events we had to get through and this has really topped off all our hard training. The team sailed really well, it was tricky conditions, conditions that we actually thought we were weakest in so we’re psyched we came out on top.

“It was so close, neither team could give up. Everyone was pushing it to the limit,” Tunnicliffe said. “In the last race it was an inch or two to the finish line. That pretty much summed up the racing. It was close all around and Lucy is a great competitor, her team is awesome and we just had so much fun sailing against them.”

France’s Claire Leroy took the bronze medal in the petite final against Russia’s Ekaterina Skudina. After being even on one match apiece and with a number of lead changes between the French and the Russians, Leroy won the next two matches to take the bronze.

Despite some hard fought sailing from Skudina, Leroy never thought she would lose third place: “We were not worried. We were ready to fight and we just took it match after match. We knew at this level all the girls are really, really good so we did what we had to do.”

Top 8 results:

49er

John Pink and Rick Peacock are still in the overall lead in the 49er skiff class, although their points cushion was narrowed to just two ahead of Australia’s Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen after the third of three races on Friday.

The British pair is on 61 points, Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen are on 63 with the Danish Toft Neilsen brothers on 70. Two points behind them is the New Zealand pair, Peter Burling and Blair Tuke.

Friday started with Simon and Emil Toft Neilsen finishing first in race 10, with France’s Mathieu Frei and Yann Rocherieux second.

Danes Allan Noerregaard Christensen and Peter Lang were out front for most of the time in race 11, holding on to finish first ahead of Sweden’s Charlie Enlund Ekberg and Kalle Torlen.

In the third Gold fleet race, world number two duo from Austria Nico Delle Karth and Nikolaus Resch scored their first top three finish, taking first place from Danes Peter Kruger Andersen and Nicolai Thorsell.

Overall leaders Pink and Peacock placed 15th, after starting the race further to the right than the rest of the fleet.

"I did really want to stay with the fleet in a clear lane but we kind of got bounced from it," explained Peacock. "After that we thought the best way to get a clear lane was to split from the fleet and stay away from trouble, but not knowing that maybe shifts had a bigger input."

Dave Evans and Ed Powys remain in the medal race positions, in seventh overall, with three more fleet races scheduled for Saturday before the final double points-scoring medal race on Sunday.

Top 20 results

Star

Unless the unthinkable happens, defending World Champions, Brazil’s Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada look set to retain their title with an 18 point overall lead going into tomorrow’s medal race.

As the rest of the fleet fought for a place in the top 10, Scheidt and Prada placed second and third to end the day on 35 points.

The world number two pair has had a spectacular year, winning six international Star events, including the Weymouth and Portland International Regatta in July.

The top three teams remain unchanged from Thursday, with Americans Mark Mendelblatt and Brian Faith still in second place on 53 points, and Germans Robert Stanjek and Frithjof Kleen only two points behind in third.

Despite retaining their second place, the Americans had a disappointing day on the water, placing eighth and tenth in races 9 and 10.

Big winners on the penultimate day were Poland’s Mateusz Kusznierewicz and Dominik Zycki. They won the first race by eight seconds over Scheidt and Prada, but despite leading for most of race 10, they were beaten at the finish by Swedes Freddie Loof and Max Salminen by only two seconds. That result means the Swedish pair stays in fourth position overall, and may challenge for a medal. Kuznierewicz and Zycki move up one place to fifth, but are almost certainly out of medal contention.

Top 20 results

Women’s 470

Fleet leaders Tara Pacheco and Berta Betanzos from Spain are ahead by a solid 13 points going into tomorrow’s final Gold fleet races, despite a fair day on the water on Friday.

Japan’s Ai Kondo and Wakako Tabata, on 44 points, have some serious catching up to do for a chance at winning the Worlds and will need to perform strongly on Saturday. Three points behind are Israel’s Gil Cohen and Vered Buskila in third.

Brazil’s Martine Grael and Isabel Swan’s had a perfect start to Friday’s racing although were trumped by Italians Giulia Conti and Giovanna Micol in the second race. Despite being beaten to the fourth mark, the Brazilians maintained sizeable leads throughout race 7, finishing first by 15 seconds.

Japanese duo Yuka Yoshisako and Noriko Okuma, France’s Ingrid Petitjean and Nadege Douroux and New Zealand’s Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie battled it out from the fifth mark, with Yoshisako and Okuma finishing second closely followed by the Kiwis.

The world number 12 and overall fleet leaders, Pacheco and Betanzos had their worst race so far in the competition in race 7, but this 27th placing is currently their discard.

While Grael and Swan led the charge in race 8, they were overtaken before the last mark and finished 10 seconds behind winners Conti and Micol.

With only two races to go and a fleet overall placing of 15, world number one duo, Erin Maxwell and Isabelle Kinsolving from the USA, have an almost impossible task ahead of them to secure a place in the top 10 fleet for Sunday’s Medal Race.

Among the Brits, Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark are the leading crew. They posted a steady 12,8 to elevating them into fifth overall and raring to “step up a gear tomorrow”, while Penny Clark and Katrina Hughes had a solid first race before penalty turns in the second for a port-starboard infringement saw them finish in 30th, ending the day seventh overall.

Top 20 results:

The Laser and RS:X men’s classes will return to action for their final day of fleet racing on Saturday before Sunday’s finals.