Excerpt from the RMOCR Press Release:
Nearing the Final Stretch
Sailors in three Paralympic classes have only one day of racing left at US SAILING’s Rolex Miami OCR while those in 10 Olympic classes still have tomorrow to make critical moves for securing spots in the final medal races on Saturday. The racing formats used for this event, which began Monday and counts as the second of seven stops on the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) Sailing World Cup circuit, replicate those that will be used in the Olympic and Paralympic sailing events of 2012, and 716 sailors from 53 nations have come to test them on Biscayne Bay, where the regatta has returned annually since 1990.
The one-on-one pairing today of the world’s top-ranked Elliott 6m teams demonstrated all of the beauty and intrigue of match racing, which will make its Olympic debut in 2012: a delicate dance in the dial-up before the start, aggressive challenges for position and expert boat and sail handling on short legs to the marks, with protests decided instantly by on-water judges. Though winds were painstakingly light, Gold and Repechage Groups completed their round-robin matches, determining who will meet whom in tomorrow’s quarterfinals. Topping the Gold group for a #1 seed going into tomorrow was Lucy Macgregor/Mary Rook/ Kate Macgregor (GBR) with a 4-1 win-loss score, with Ekaterina Skudina/Elena Syuzeva/Irina Lotsmanova (RUS) posting the next-best score of 3-2.
“We’ve got a few areas we need to improve on,” said Macgregor. “Starting...we could be much stronger, but other than that, we’re feeling really confident. We’re sailing better than anyone else around the course – if I could just get the starts right then we’ll be really good!”
Macgregor explained that Annie Lush, their usual middle crew, had a serious accident—on land, falling off the boat—five days before the event started, so Mary Rook was flown out to replace her. “We’ve been trying to learn quite quickly with having her join us – getting the boat handling all sorted, getting the communication right between the three of us and it’s slowly coming together,“ said Macgregor.
Macgregor’s team will face off tomorrow with New Zealand’s Stephanie Hazard/ Susannah Pyatt/ Jenna Hansen, who finished second in Repechage behind USA’s Sally Barkow/ Alana O’Reilly/ Elizabeth Kratzig-Burnham. Hazard and Barkow got their repechage—French for “second chance”—by beating out four other teams in their group to become the two teams advanced to the semifinals.
“This has been one of the most competitive of the World Cup women’s match racing events,” said Liz Baylis, Executive Director of the Women’s International Match Racing Association, who has been serving as Assistant PRO (Principal Race Officer) for the match racing. “We have 14 of the top 15 ranked teams competing, and there are plenty of names you’d expect to be moving on (in the rounds) who are not moving on. Baylis explained that in each of last year’s ISAF Sailing World Cup Series match racing events there was a different champion from a different country, and the eventual winner--Claire Leroy of France, who is sailing here with Elodie Bertrand/Marie Riou and is seeded sixth going into tomorrow’s eight-team quarter finals—never won a single event.
Other teams advancing to the Quarter Finals are defending champions Anna Tunnicliffe/Molly Vandemoer/Debbie Capozzi (USA); Ekaterina Skudina/Elena Syuzeva/Irina Lotsmanova (RUS); Silja Lehtinen/Silja Kanerva/Mikaela Wulff (FIN); and Nicky Souter/Jessica Eastwell/Olivia Price (AUS).
(View complete results here: http://www.wimra.org/documents/Stage1-DayThree-Results.pdf and http://www.wimra.org/documents/Stage2345-DayFour-Results.pdf)
Quarter Final Pairings:
Match 1 - Lucy Macgregor/Mary Rook/Kate Macgregor (GBR) v. Stephanie Hazard/Susannah Pyatt/Jenna Hansen (NZL)
Match 2- Ekaterina Skudina/Elena Syuzeva/Irina Lotsmanova (RUS) v. Sally Barkow/ Alana O’Reilly/ Elizabeth Kratzig-Burnham
Match 3- Nicky Souter/Jessica Eastwell/Olivia Price (AUS) v. Claire Leroy/Elodie Bertrand/Marie Riou (FRA)
Match 4- Silja Lehtinen/Silja Kanerva/Mikaela Wulff (FIN) v. Anna Tunnicliffe/Molly Vandemoer/Debbie Capozzi (USA)
