Silver & Bronze medal race for 49ers.
by News Editor on 25 Sep 2000
Isabelle Musy
The Silver & Bronze medal race , the last race of 49er regatta, in 12 knots of breeze nor-north easterly.
The Finns, Thomas Johanson and Jyrki Jarvi, with the Gold medal secure still decided to race.
After a general recall, in the 2nd start, Chris Nicholson elected to start in the second row, so he could go right, straight after crossing the line. Tacking back, Nicholson crossed ahead of the McKee brothers (USA) the German crew of Baur & Barth, the Japanese, the Finns & the Italians.
The breeze seemed to be going to the right and Nicholson at that stage was going hard left. He got out of phase and group who he had just crossed beat him to the first mark..
Italy was first around just ahead of Finns, then Germany, the McKee brothers (USA) the British.
By the end of the run the Italians had stretched their lead, while the Finns were just ahead of the American McKees brothers with the British almost overlapping them.
By the second windward mark USA had grabbed the lead. Spain had made an enormous gain on the second beat and by the end of the second run lead the pack around, followed by USA, who were keeping their eyes firmly on the British team close behind who were defending their Silver position.
The McKee's swept away from the fleet, to a very convincing win of a minute and a half, however England's Ian Barker and Simon Hiscock's took third position behind the Polish crew and won the Silver medal.
Nicholson finished 7th , (and so were 6th in the regatta) and the Gold medallist Finns finished in 13th place.
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