Bronze For Winther At Sail For Gold

Bronze For Winther At Sail For Gold

Sara Winther on the podium

2010 Skandia Sail for Gold has come to a close after six days of racing in Weymouth, England at the venue of the next Olympic Games. New Zealand has clinched one medal with Sara Winther awarded bronze in the Laser Radial, and a further seven NZL Sailing Team representatives achieving a top ten finish.

Winther has pulled off a personal best career result winning her first medal at a ISAF Sailing World Cup event outside Australasia with a bronze medal at the well attended 2010 Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta in Weymouth. Earlier this year, Winther was achieved top five at French Olympic Sailing Week and she goes one better with this result.

Winther, who is 28 years old and represents the Takapuna Boating Club on Auckland’s North Shore, made it to the podium by sailing with consistency despite a range of conditions throughout the six day series. After one average race on the opening day she hit her stride and returned solid race results from then on, improving her overall position as the series progressed putting herself in medal contention.

In last night’s high pressure medal race Winther held her nerve and placed 5th which was enough to secure her the bronze medal behind Marit Bouwmeester of the Netherlands topping the class and Sari Multala of Finland taking the silver.

“It feels really good, especially after Worlds didn’t go that well for me,” says Winther. “I just felt at home here.”

“The last two days we were close to the beach and it was really shifty, but for me that’s just like Takapuna. I was just at home with it and felt really comfortable with the conditions.”

When asked what has made the difference Winther says; “I now have some confidence in my speed around the course; it’s grown since last year. I just feel I’ve got better confidence with my manoeuvres, and getting off the line, and I’m making better tactical decisions. I’ve been trying to be more consistent with my decision making throughout the entire race, and that’s definitely made a difference in the placings.”

“I had a 22nd on the first day, and a yellow flag in that same race, so I was really having to hold back on the down winds because of that flag. And any other points I got this week I was basically carrying because of the 22nd, so it was good to keep getting the top fives and top tens.”

After two months competing in Europe Winther now returns home to New Zealand for a break from competition.

Over in the Men’s single-handed dinghy event New Zealand had two sailors competing in the final medal race, Andrew Murdoch being the best placed as they took to the water and in with a shot at bronze. Racing home to cross fourth in the quick fire finale it wasn’t quite enough to make the podium, Murdoch finishing an agonising two points adrift of third place in fourth overall.

Mike Bullot had a better medal race finishing second in medal race giving him seventh overall.

Two of the kiwis come away with a sixth place overall including Jon-Paul Tobin in the Men’s RS:X who goes on from here to Kerteminde, Denmark for the 2010 World Championships. Tobin was fourth in the medal race.

Dan Slater comes away with a finish of sixth place in the Finn fleet after an eventful week of racing for him. Last home in the medal race he was unable to better his placing on the final day.

Another three kiwi crews were inside the top ten, all finishing in eighth place overall. They include Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie who were ninth in the Women’s 470 medal race, Hamish Pepper and Craig Monk sixth in the Star class medal race and Peter Burling and Blair Tuke who were were seventh in the 49er medal race.

You can now follow the NZL Sailing Team via their Facebook page.

2010 Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta
New Zealand’s Final Results

Star (36 boats)
8th Hamish Pepper and Craig Monk

Laser (180 boats)
4th Andrew Murdoch
7th Mike Bullot
14th Josh Junior
17th Sam Meech
23rd Andy Maloney
88th (27th silver fleet) James Sandall
128th (8th bronze fleet) George Lane
154th (34th bronze fleet) Spencer Loxton

Laser Radial (91 boats)
3rd Sara Winther
32nd Rachel Basevi
34th Miranda Powrie

470 Men (60 boats)
18th Paul Snow-Hansen and Jason Saunders
28th Geoff Woolley and Daniel Willcox
31st (1st in silevr fleet) Francisco Lardies and Finn Drummond

470 Women (46 boats)
8th Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie

49er (58 boats)
8th Peter Burling and Blair Tuke

Finn (50 boats)
6th Dan Slater

RS:X Men (75 sailors)
6th Jon-Paul Tobin
11th Tom Ashley

RS:X Women (50 sailors)
24th Natalia Kosinska
34th Stephanie Williams (40, 27, 23, 16, 44, 43, 37, 28)
35th Alice Monk (41, 34, 24, 31, 42, 33, 31, 20)

Women’s Match Racing (24 teams)
13th overall - Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen and Susannah Pyatt - Top of Silver Round Robin: 5 wins/0 losses

Coaching Team
Graeme Sutherland
Jez Fanstone
Mark Howard
Andrew Palfrey
David Robertson
Rod Slater
Hamish Willcox

Links
Regatta website
NZL Sailing Team Facebook page

ENDS

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