Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta - Toughing it out in the Trenches
It’s Day Two of Skandia Sail for Gold and it was a tough day in the trenches for everyone, as race officers took the opportunity to catch up with the schedule. These are the hard yards, long days in tough conditions, and diametrically opposed to the glory moments of the medal race. If yesterday was all about the subtleties of light air racing, today was all about fitness and technique in the building breeze and waves. Weymouth turned it on with sunshine and an afternoon breeze that topped out in excess of 25 knots on the outer courses.
The Match Racing completed the first group stage setting up the next stages: The 1st and 2nd ranked in each Group from Stage 1 proceed to the Gold group and are guaranteed a place in the Quarter Finals of the competition. The Gold Group sail a round robin series to determine the seedings for the Quarter Finals. The 3rd and 4th ranked in each Group from Stage 1 proceed to the Repechage Group and sail a round robin series and the top TWO teams advance to the Quarter Finals. The remaining FOUR teams are placed 9th to 12th overall in the final standings of the competition giving us the Gold Group qualifiers.
From Group A it was the Netherlands’ Mandy Mulder, Annemieke Bes and Merel Witteveen topping the group with six points equal to - but winning the tie-break with - second placed Sally Barkow, Elizabeth Kratizig-Burnham and Alana O’Reilly from the USA. In Group B, Anne-claire Le Berre, Alice Ponsar and Myrtille Ponge (FRA) went through on six points, one win clear of Australia’s Nicky Souter, Jessica Eastwell and Lucinda Witty, qualifying in second. And from Group C it was Anna Tunnicliffe, Molly Vandemoer and Debbie Capozzi (USA) going through with a clean sheet, and Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor (GBR) joining them with five wins.
Going through to the Repechage to fight for a chance to join the Gold Group in the Quarter-Finals are: Claire Leroy (FRA), Tamara Echegoyen (ESP), Renee Groeneveld (NED), Silja Lehtinen (FIN), Lotte Meldgaard (DEN), and Silke Hahlbrock (GER).
Racing continues at Skandia Sail for Gold until Saturday.
Quotes from today:
Anna Tunnicliffe (USA) - Women’s Match Racing
Gold Group Qualifier, Laser Radial Gold Medal in 2008
"We had a great day again today. We had three races and came away with three wins to win our Group C round. Our last race was against the Brits (Lucy Macgregor). They controlled us for the first minute or so of the pre-start, but then we managed to get control of them after that. We led them into the start a few seconds late, and matched their tack off the line. We had great speed and were able to pin them to the layline."
"Downwind, they closed the gap at the leeward mark, but we pulled ahead again up the next beat and held our lead to the finish. The conditions were windy so boat control and speed were important. Now we advance to the Gold Round. The team did a great job in the bigger breeze making great calls all around the course. The conditions in Weymouth are great. It’s chilly when the wind blows, but the wind is fantastic. The facilities are great and make training and racing very good."
Results are being updated live:
Sail For Gold website
Stage One Results:Stage 1 Results
And the event is being covered on Twitter with live information from the course:
http://twitter.com/SSFG_WMR
Course Tracking: Please note on Wednesday tracking will be on the Women’s Match Racing course. You can follow the tracking on the event website: www.mobile.tractrac.com
