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Photo: Courtesy of US Sailing Media |
470 Mens
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Belcher and Ryan faced their first defeat Photo: © ISAF/Miami World Cup |
But Saturday belonged to the French team of Sofian Bouvet and Jeremie Mion who notched their first ISAF World Cup victory and consequently ended the unprecedented winning streak of Belcher and Ryan. Belcher and Ryan placed second in the medal race, which moved them up to the silver medal. The fleet leaders McNay and Hughes won bronze.
The second place finish for the 2013 Male Sailor of the year Belcher snaps his 18 regatta win streak, and tenth regatta with Ryan. But as Belcher pointed out about this week’s experience, it’s all about continuing to learn as it will ultimately all come down to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio:
It’s been a really tough week having the same conditions for the last six days and only getting in six races as opposed to 10 was challenging. But the French had a great regatta, and so did the Americans. The fleet quality here is phenomenal. We've got most of the top 15 in the world here and we’ve learnt a lot about our competitors and how they race in these conditions and we’re in a pretty good position. It certainly motivated the fleet to try and turn our past results, but for us it's all about Rio. And these conditions will be similar to Rio.”
“Obviously we are a little bit sad that the winning streak is finished. It’s been over a year we had not lost and to get this silver medal is a little bit different. But it’s also good to have a bit of a reflection on what we have achieved. In the sport of sailing anything can happen and it’s good to learn how we handle this in our preparation. We are looking back and it’s cool to know we won all those events and did that performance.”
“The goal is Rio and our aim has always been to not worry about the streak so much. We did learn a lot about ourselves during that process though and how we handle the pressure and expectation and that type of pressure it puts on our performance. It was a great learning curve, which I’m sure will help us a lot going into Rio.”
Finn
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Oliver Tweddell fell to second overall Photo: © ISAF/Miami World Cup |
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Giles Scott Photo: © ISAF/Miami World Cup |
Tweddell’s silver medal repeats his second at ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne and he said afterwards about his performance:
“The medal race was extremely tough. We had about 3-4 knots and a lot of chop, so it was very difficult. While I'm devastated with losing the Gold medal, I’m still pleased with how I've sailed all week. My performance was very good throughout the week, so to lose it the way I did is pretty hard to take. The positive is, I've learned a lot throughout the regatta and highlighted some key areas I need to improve on in the light winds.”
About his training squad and plans ahead Tweddell said: “The Australian Finn Squad is in great shape, we are working well as a team and constantly improving. So I feel very strongly that it is on its way to emulating the success we have in our Laser, 470 and 49er squad systems. From here we have a few training camps back home before we head over to Palma for the next round of the World Cup.”
Australian Sailing Squad member Jake Lilley (QLD) and Olympian Brendan Casey (QLD) just missed out on the medal race and finished an overall 12th and 14th.
Laser
Tom Burton Photo: Courtesy of Australian Sailing Team |
Tonci Stipanovic Photo: © ISAF/Miami World Cup |
“I have been sailing well at times and not so great at others. Today was one of the latter. I have a load of tiny things to work on heading into the year, which is good as I am still near the front of the fleet at the moment. I had taken some time out of the boat after Melbourne and had not specifically trained for this event. We have a strong fleet and I'm looking forward to racing these guys throughout the year and to continue building,” Burton said afterwards.
Nacra 17
Darren Bundock and Nina Curtis Photo: ©Thom Touw Photography |
Bundock’s assessment of the week: “It was a very pleasing result for us even though we finished sixth, but we were quite pleased with how we went in only our second event together ever. We had very light conditions here, which we never thought was amongst our strengths at this stage. We feel we’ll be a much stronger team when there’s wind as well. In light breeze the level in the fleet is obviously very high and unfortunately we didn’t get any breeze to test how we go against the other guys once there’s a bit of wind. All in all it was a great regatta.”
Australian Sailing Team’s Lisa Darmanin (NSW) and Jason Waterhouse (NSW) missed out on today’s medal race and finished an overall 19th.
The next leg of the 2014 ISAF Sailing World Cup will be held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain from 29 March – 5 April 2014.
For full results see>>> http://www.sailing.org/worldcup/results/index.php
Cora Zillich
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