PRESS RELEASE - 29th August, 2009
New pairings come good
Report credit: Sailing Intelligence
While the rain gods held off all week, the medal races for the 470 World Championship took place today, run by the Royal Danish Yacht Club off Rungsted harbour, in conditions varying so wildly that Beijing Gold medallist Malcolm Page described them as “like four seasons rolled into one”.
And so, following today’s double points scoring Medal races for the top ten placers in each event, men and women, Croatia’s Šime Fantela and Igor Marenic are the new Men’s 470 World Champions, while the ever consistent Dutch women, Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout, have won this year’s World title in the Women’s event.
Going into the medal race, the Croatian men were looking comfortable in the Gold spot with a 16 point lead over the second placed Japanese, Ryunosuke Harada and Yugo Yoshida, winners of this year’s European championship. The main fight was on for the remaining podium spots with the Japanese separated by just two points from the Netherland’s Sven and Kalle Coster, the class act earlier this week, and the fledgling British duo of Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell.
With the wind initially out of the west, the unpredictable offshore breeze the sailors dislike, racing got underway for the Men shortly before 1500 local time. The race, held on the shorter medal race course, closer to land, turned into a nailbiter with the lead changing on the first three legs. On the first upwind, the Costers chose the extreme right while the British were furthest out to the left and narrowly led around the top mark. On the downwind Spain’s Onan Barreiros and Aaron Sarmiento had taken the lead, while a big left hand shift on the second beat saw Australians Matt Belcher and Malcolm Page surge up to first, which they never relinquished. The Croatians finishing immediately behind them was enough to secure their Gold, while a solid fourth place for Patience and Bithell allowed them to take silver, tied on points with the Japanese Harada and Yugo Yoshida, who moved down to the final spot on the podium.
While they made it look easy Fantela said the race was about as tense as could be. “We went out in 20 knots and the shower came with 35 knots and then there was no wind and then we started in light winds. So it was hard, really hard.”
But it wasn’t only the varied conditions putting knots in his stomach. “The race was not so sure for us, because I thought we were OCS on the start. We had a good start and the opening of the race was really good, but because I thought we were OCS, I started to watch where were our opponents – the Japanese, Costers and the British. Then when the British rounded first and we rounded seventh with the Japanese and the Costers behind us, it wasn’t so good because I was thinking if ‘we are OCS and he is first – we lose!’ Then when we got to the finish I saw we were not OCS and I was really, really happy. I feel really good, really good now,” said Fantela, once he’d arrived back at the Rungsted harbour slipway to be showered with congratulations from both his team and rivals.
Most surprising was the result of the 23 year olds Patience and Bithell, one of the youngest teams in the Skandia Team GBR Men’s 470 squad. They pulled up two places in the medal race to take silver, despite being such a new pairing that they had only sailed for five days prior to embarking on this World Championship.
“I am ecstatic. I can’t believe it. I really am happy, with hopefully more to come…” said Patience, the beaming Scot. “We went in with all to gain and nothing to lose. We said to each other ‘we are just racing our race and we’ll just go and do what we are good at’. We were more than confident that we could come away with silver today in a medal race that was tight and small and offshore. It was one of those races where people do whacky things and try to go for all or nothing. So that went in our favour.”
But the class act of this 470 World Championship has been another new pairing: that of the Netherland’s Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout. They went into today’s medal race with a commanding lead, only to win it, thereby coming out with the lowest score across both fleets – just 36 points, 24 ahead of the second placed young Spanish crew, Tara Pacheco and Berta Betanzos, while French long term campaigners Ingrid Petitjean and Nadège Douroux retained bronze.
Despite having led this championship from the outset, the Dutch duo were over the moon to have won their first Worlds. Both are seasoned campaigners, Westerhof representing the Netherlands at the Olympic Games in Athens, where she finished ninth, and Berkhout, a twice world champion, who picked up silver in Beijing last year.
“This is awesome. We wanted it SO SO much,” said Westerhof, literally jumping up and down for joy on the slipway. “This was not our goal. Our goal was to get close to the top sailors in the world. We started really really well and sailed a very consistent series and then a medal race like this which we won by really really far – it is great.”
As to why they had done so well so early on in their campaign for the 2012 Games, Westerhof explained: “Two good sailors, a good coach, we had a good structure, we were working together really well….and there is still so much room for improvement still, as we only just got together, like communication and making decisions and who decides what – we are still finding things out and we’ll make sure we work really hard from now on. We’re not going to sit back and relax. We are going to push it through and make sure.”
The majority of the sailors in this World Championship are soon to be heading for Weymouth in the UK for the Sail For Gold Regatta over 14-19 September. Next year’s World Championship takes place over 9-18 July 2010 in The Hague in the Netherlands.
At the conclusion of the regatta Morten Lorenzen, CEO of the Royal Danish Yacht Club commented: “We are really happy – and tired. It has been a really big event for us, but with such a dedicated group of volunteers who have worked from early morning till late night, we have managed to achieve what we set out for: to hold a really great event for the sailors. And the order we send to the weather gods before the event, also came through!
“The Royal Danish Yacht Club’s ambition is to hold high class events, where the activities on the water combine with a great atmosphere ashore. We are all sailors ourselves, and just simply try to create an event we would like to participate in ourselves.”
Final lunge for the medal races
Report credit: Sailing Intelligence
With the final culling to determine the top 10 boats in both the Men and Women’s Gold fleet going through to tomorrow’s concluding medal races, today was the most traumatic to date at the 470 Worlds, organised by the Royal Danish Yacht Club and held off Rungsted to the north of Copenhagen, Denmark. In both fleets some impressive snakes and ladders took place despite the late stage of this regatta.
The wind today was similar to yesterday with a reasonably stable moderate southerly breeze that died off half way through the second race. But the summery conditions had given way to a more autumnal hue: more chilly and with the sky overcast.
Common to both the Men’s and Women’s fleets is that the Gold medal position tomorrow is looking reasonably secure. In the Women, it is of course the unshakable, consistent Dutch duo of Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout, who today posted a 6-1, and still hold an eighth as a discard. After today’s racing they are now 14 points ahead of the Junior World Championship winners from Spain, Tara Pacheco and Berta Betanzos, on 48 points and third placed Ingrid Petitjean and Nadege Douroux from France on 54.
The top performance of the day was that of the young Spanish crew Pacheco and Betanzos, who after scoring two seconds, climbed up from fourth this morning to second, swapping places with Italy’s Giulia Conti and Giovanna Micol.
“In the first race it was really good,” said Pacheco, who heralds from the Canary Islands and who’s performance is impressive, despite being only 20. “We didn’t have a good start but we took some shifts and we stayed in the top 10. After that we always went up and that was nice.”
It being so early in her Olympic career, Pacheco gives the impression she is feeling less pressure on her than her more experienced rivals. “When we went into the water we knew we had to only sail and have fun. That was what we did - have fun and work hard in the boat. Other people have other pressure. I am happy staying in the top 10. I don’t mind if tomorrow I lose.”
Equally pleased with her performance and that of her crew Isabelle Kinsolving Farrar was US Sailing Team Alphagrapics’ Eric Maxwell, the reigning World Champion, who scraped into tomorrow’s medal race, just one point ahead of Argentinians Maria Fernando Sesto and Consuelo Monsegur.
Like so many here who represented their respective countries in Beijing last year, Maxwell and her crew have taken a break from sailing over these last months. “I think that each day we’ve been becoming a bit more confident and our boat handling has been getting better and we’ve been coming together as a team, having not sailed a lot this season,” said Maxwell. “We just knew we had to get it done and today was the day to put it all on the line and show everyone what we have and have a good event.”
In terms of race course specifics, with the wind from the south, the right side of the course was paying as there seemed to be not only more relief from the current there, but also better pressure. The Americans played this best and were able to win today’s first race, following this up with a ninth.
As to getting into the medal race, Maxwell commented: “At the start of today I knew it was a possibility but I gave ourselves a 40% chance of making it. I knew we were sailing better and we were starting to feel more confident and feel a little greased. I knew it would be an uphill battle – the points were stacked against us, we were 13 points out of 10th at the start of the day and teams in front of us are all good teams. We knew that given the forecast they were all good teams in that wind velocity and unless we sailed our absolute best we weren’t going to make it.” But make it, they did.
But the biggest high jumpers today were once again the Greeks, Panagiotis Mantis and Kagialis Paulos, who in the high scoring men’s fleet posted a 2-9 today, causing them to soar from 17th to 10th, earning themselves a place on tomorrow’s elite starting grid. Just 48 hours ago they were 30th.
“We are very happy,” said Mantis. “We hoped conditions would be the same and we could make the same sailing as yesterday. Conditions were pretty much the same. We had good starts in both races and good upwinds, so we were in the top ten in both races. We just wanted to get into the top 10 – that was our goal from the start of the Championship.”
The Argentinians Luca Calabrese and Jean de la Fuente also squeezed into tomorrow’s medal race, having started the day in 12th and ending it four points ahead of the Greeks, at the expense of New Zealand’s Paul Snow-Hansen and Jason Saunders who plummeted eight places today.
Another successful day on the water, while all the top men’s team suffered with the exception of the young French crew of Pierre LeBoucher and Vincent Garos and yesterday’s British stars Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell, has seen Croatia’s Šime Fantela and Igor Marenic gain a near unassailable 16 point lead among the Men.
“It was another amazing day,” said Marenic. “Today we had two almost perfect starts on the right side, by the committee boat. Then we tacked almost immediately and we were in the top on the right side in both races and the right side was winning except the second upwind of the first race. But all in all we were always in the top today and the second race we won with an excellent downwind leg. So we are now confident for tomorrow.”
As to whether they expected they would be in this position, the World Championship all but won for them, Marenic admitted that after their recent European Championship win they knew they were on top form, but they didn’t expect to be leading here in Denmark.
“After our fourth in the first race we knew we still had a good discard and we thought we could risk more so we risked a bit on the start," said Marenic. "We must have been very close to OCS and it paid off.” They, like the Women’s leaders, won the second race today.
While the Croats’ lead is looking comfortable, the fight for the remaining podium spots is anything but, with two points separating the second to fourth placed boats going into the Medal race.
Men's Medal Race
1 CRO 83 Fantela Šime, Marenic Igor 3 2 1 1 6 7 8 8 13 16 4 1 - 54
2 JPN 4340 Harada Ryunosuke, Yoshida Yugo 2 5 12 2 6 3 bfd 2 8 9 3 18 - 70
3 NED 1 Coster Sven, Coster Kalle 1 9 3 1 2 1 22 7 16 11 10 10 - 71
4 GBR 834 Patience Luke, Stuart Bithell 12 5 4 4 9 15 1 6 30 7 7 2 - 72
5 FRA 44 Leboucher Pierre, Garos Vincent 4 11 4 4 1 6 bfd 27 2 10 8 3 - 80
6 ESP 9 Barreiros Onan, Sarmiento Aaron 10 7 6 11 14 1 2 9 1 dnf 5 16 - 82
7 AUT 3 Schmid Matthias, Reichstaedter Florian 14 1 2 3 3 2 17 17 11 1 14 25 - 85
8 AUS 11 Belcher Matthew, Page Malcolm 7 5 8 3 2 5 14 11 9 14 12 13 - 89
9 ARG 7 Calabrese Lucas, De la Fuente Juan 4 19 5 8 7 7 9 25 12 6 13 4 - 94
10 GRE 1 Mantis Panagiotis, Paulos Kagialis 11 8 11 13 1 16 bfd 22 3 2 2 - 98
Women's Medal Race
1 NED 11 Westerhof Lisa, Berkhout Lobke 2 2 3 2 1 4 4 6 3 8 6 1 - 34
2 ESP 696 Pacheco Tara, Betanzos Berta 4 11 4 1 6 5 3 3 8 10 2 2 - 48
3 FRA 4 Petitjean Ingrid, Douroux Nadège 2 2 19 9 4 2 1 18 4 2 4 6 - 54
4 ITA 23 Conti Giulia, Micol Giovanna 17 5 1 7 3 1 2 2 7 13 15 5 - 61
5 AUS 357 Rechichi Elise, Parkinson Tessa 19 6 1 5 2 3 10 16 12 6 9 11 - 81
6 GBR 842 Wilson Pippa, Clark Saskia 8 4 3 2 6 2 11 21 13 14 8 10 - 81
7 GBR 822 Clark Penny, Hughes Katrina 14 1 5 7 1 15 8 9 16 12 7 7 - 86
8 NZL 75 Aleh Jo, Powrie Olivia 15 1 9 1 5 8 bfd 20 10 4 10 4 - 87
9 JPN 4151 Kondo Ai, Tabata Wakako 6 10 2 5 2 7 17 17 11 11 13 3 - 87
10 USA 1757 Maxwell Erin, Farrar Isabelle Kinsolving 5 5 15 6 12 11 18 22 5 9 1 9 - 96,0
PRESS RELEASE - 27th August, 2009
Croatia and Japan top the Men's 470 Worlds
Report credit: Sailing Intelligence
Solid wind and blazing sunshine remain the welcome constant factors of this 470 World Championship, run out of Rungsted, Denmark, by the Royal Danish Yacht Club. But today the weather threw up yet more fresh challenge. While the current flowing north out of the Baltic Sea was not a problem, nor yesterday’s awkward offshore breeze, the wind having returned to the south-southeast and gusting up to around 15 knots. But today the wind was oscillating and it was a case of picking the shifts wisely.
For the Men’s Gold fleet, this is turning into a high scoring regatta. Having their second disappointing day were this morning’s Dutch leaders, Sven and Kalle Coster. After using up their discard with a 22nd yesterday, today’s 16th and 11th places are counters and have dropped them back to third overall. They are now on 51 points, two behind the consistent Croats Šime Fantela and Igor Marenic, who are tied on points in first place with the Japanese winners of this year’s European championship, Ryunosuke Harada and Yugo Yoshida.
However none of these were on the podium of either of today’s two races. In the first, honours went to Spain’s Onan Barreiros and Aaron Sarmiento, last year’s fifth place finishers in Beijing, while the second race went to Austrian duo Matthias Schmid and Florian Reichstaedter.
“We had a bad start, but we found a good lane out,” said Schmid of their win. “Most of the fleet wanted to go right and we were a little bit lucky that on the upwind it was better left, and we also had really, really good boat speed. So we are very happy.”
As to the conditions Schmid commented: “I think it was a really nice sailing day - absolutely perfect. The wind was oscillating, so it was not that extreme one side or the other, and for us we always found the good side. Yesterday we were always wrong and today we were always right. You have good days and bad days and today we were not unlucky.” As a result they have elevated themselves from ninth place to fourth overall.
Another team whose fortunes turned around dramatically were Greece’s Panagiotis Mantis and Kagialis Paulos, who posted a welcome third and a second, in utter contrast to their black flag and 22nd yesterday.
“We were lucky in the second race because we didn’t have a good start, but we ended up on the left side,” said Mantis. “We like this breeze and we had good speed and we had a lucky shift to the left and we passed in the front.”
“Today the wind was more stable, with less current and more windy. So it was good for us. Tomorrow is another day and probably another wind, another current!” continued Mantis, who has been sailing the 470 since 2000 and who with Paulos are currently the second placed Greek Men’s 470 team in the ISAF rankings, just behind Andreas Kosmatopoulos and Andreas Papadopoulos.
In the Women’s Gold fleet, it is also a high scoring regatta with the exception of one team – the newly co-joined but as individuals hugely experienced Dutch duo of Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout. Today was the worst day they have had, posting a 3-8, the latter now their discard. Overall they are on 27 points, 14 ahead of this year’s European champions Giulia Conti and Giovanna Micol from Italy.
Today’s race winners were Spain’s Marina Gallego and Julia Rita Roman and Argentina’s Maria Fernando Sesto and Consuelo Monsegur, the latter two of the most seasoned women’s 470 campaigners, having been to the last three Olympic Games.
Gallego and Roman had the best day in the Women’s Gold fleet posting a 1-3, raising them from 10th to seventh overall. “Our start was good in both,” said Roman. “We were fast and on every shift we tacked, so we were going good and downwind we just followed the waves. So no secrets. The conditions were much better. Today if the wind changed you had to go with the wind.”
From Minorca, although they are both now based in Majorca, Roman only moved into the 470 last September having previously been a Europe sailor. “So the trapeze for me is new, but it is fun,” she says. Marina Gallego has been in the class for the last four years and the duo are currently the third placed Spanis crew on the ISAF rankings. Yet at this World Championship they are the only women’s team to have scored three bullets.
Coming from the Mediterranean, Roman says that she is finding Denmark a bit chilly for the height of summer and she has picked up a cold. “But I like it. The current is hard, because we aren’t that used to it.”
Like the Austrian and Greek men, French veterans Ingrid Petitjean and Nadège Douroux turned their fortunes around today with a 4-2 finish, pulling them up to fourth overall, level on points with Spains’ Tara Pacheco and Berta Betanzos, three points off silver.
Again Petitjean, another of the longest serving members of the 470 Women’s class, put her success today down to the basics. “We went the right way, had two good starts and had good speed. That was it,” she summed up succinctly. “I think we sailed well, and in the medium conditions we can be quite fast. All the fleet did the same thing, so the most important thing was to be at the right place and tack at a good moment and I think we did that well.”
Petitjean is one of the few sailors here to have competed at Rungsted previously when she came here in 1998 for the Youth European Europe Championship. “We haven’t had too much rain and it was not too cold. I have had a very good time here. The race organisation is very good. Ashore it is amazing, people are very nice and everything is so well organised and the racing is perfect.” Conditions, the latest forecast is indicating, could hold until the end of the regatta on Saturday.
Apology: Please note that contrary to information we were given yesterday, Dutch 470 silver medallist Marcelien de Koning is not now campaigning in the RS:X Women’s class.
Results:
Men's Gold fleet - top 10
1 CRO 83 Fantela Šime, Marenic Igor 3 2 1 1 6 7 8 8 13 16 - 49
2 JPN 4340 Harada Ryunosuke, Yoshida Yugo 2 5 12 2 6 3 bfd 2 8 9 - 49
3 NED 1 Coster Sven, Coster Kalle 1 9 3 1 2 1 22 7 16 11 - 51
4 AUT 3 Schmid Matthias, Reichstaedter Florian 14 1 2 3 3 2 17 17 11 1 - 54
5 ESP 9 Barreiros Onan, Sarmiento Aaron 10 7 6 11 14 1 2 9 1 dnf - 61
6 GBR 834 Patience Luke, Stuart Bithell 12 5 4 4 9 15 1 6 30 7 - 63
7 AUS 11 Belcher Matthew, Page Malcolm 7 5 8 3 2 5 14 11 9 14 - 64
8 NZL 212 Snow-Hansen Paul, Saunders Jason 6 4 9 6 8 2 bfd 5 5 20 - 65
9 FRA 44 Leboucher Pierre, Garos Vincent 4 11 4 4 1 6 bfd 27 2 10 - 69
10 SUI 11 Bühler Matías, Steiger Felix 3 1 3 3 3 6 bfd 20 17 15 - 71
Women's Gold fleet - top 10
1 NED 11 Westerhof Lisa, Berkhout Lobke 2 2 3 2 1 4 4 6 3 8 - 27
2 ITA 23 Conti Giulia, Micol Giovanna 17 5 1 7 3 1 2 2 7 13 - 41
3 FRA 4 Petitjean Ingrid, Douroux Nadège 2 2 19 9 4 2 1 18 4 2 - 44
4 ESP 696 Pacheco Tara, Betanzos Berta 4 11 4 1 6 5 3 3 8 10 - 44
5 AUS 357 Rechichi Elise, Parkinson Tessa 19 6 1 5 2 3 10 16 12 6 - 61
6 GBR 842 Wilson Pippa, Clark Saskia 8 4 3 2 6 2 11 21 13 14 - 63
7 ESP 133 Gallego Marina, Rita Roman Julia 1 3 20 13 3 20 19 1 1 3 - 64
8 JPN 4151 Kondo Ai, Tabata Wakako 6 10 2 5 2 7 17 17 11 11 - 71
9 GBR 822 Clark Penny, Hughes Katrina 14 1 5 7 1 15 8 9 16 12 - 72
10 NZL 75 Aleh Jo, Powrie Olivia 15 1 9 1 5 8 bfd 20 10 4 - 73
PRESS RELEASE - 26th August, 2009