Tornado Worlds at Takapuna, New Zealand - Overall

by Jodie Bakewell-White 1 Mar 2008 07:04 GMT 25 February - 1 March 2008

Bundock claims his sixth Tornado World Championship

Darren Bundock and Glenn Ashby of Australia have been crowned Tornado World Champions for 2008 after racing was abandoned on the final day of the regatta due to heavy rain and strong north easterly winds in Takapuna, North Shore City, Auckland. It is Bundock's 6th world title in the Tornado having won in 2006, 2003, 2002, 2001 and 1998.

As predicted Takapuna Beach is being buffeted by 25-30 knot winds and breaking waves, with low visibility on the race course on what would have been the final day of competition at the Tornado World Championships in this Olympic year. Competitors packed the club house to await a final decision for organisers which came at 12:45 to abandon racing for the day and close the championship.

Despite a 14th and a 23rd on the first day of racing the Aussies fought back and concluded the regatta five points clear of second place. Darren Bundock reflected today on how things looked for them at the end of day one.

"After the first day we actually needed to sit down and have a look at the results, and we saw that only a few crews that hadn't had at least one bad race of a 14th plus," said Bundock.

"Then coming out the next day and getting two 2nds, it showed us that we could do it. We got a glimpse and that was all we needed."

His crew, Glenn Ashby agreed that things didn't look good after day one.

"That was a fairly big hole that we crawled down into after day one. But after that we just chipped away and chipped away. Our results over the last few regattas show that we are pretty consistent in a range of conditions and we know that Auckland and Takapuna was going to give us a range of conditions."

Canadian's Oskar Johansson and Kevin Stittle have impressed the Tornado fleet sailing with consistency throughout the event and winning the silver medal in a fleet that was stacked with the top 20 ranked Tornado sailors in the world. Not only have they qualified Canada for an Olympic berth they have also signalled to the fleet that they'll be serious medal contenders in China.

Also demonstrating consistency throughout the regatta was French pair Yann Guichard and Alexandre Guyader unfortunately having their poorest result in race eight which turned out to be the final race of the event. Ultimately it cost them the silver medal by the narrowest of margins finishing on equal points with the Canadian's but having to settle for the bronze.

Canada, Austria, New Zealand and the Ukraine have earned Olympic qualification for their respective nations beating out Russia, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Poland and Venezuela for the final four places which have been decided here at Takapuna.

It was Aaron McIntosh and Mark Kennedy who earned the place for New Zealand finishing the regatta in 12th place overall, well ahead of the next best placed kiwis Bruce Kendall and Blair Tuke who finished 26th. While national qualification is one step on the road to becoming part of the New Zealand Olympic sailing team for Qingdao in August, McIntsoh and Kennedy may yet have more work to do to persuade the New Zealand selectors that they have medal potential and should join the team as inclusion is not automatic.

Overall Results: (8 races, 1 discard)

Pos	Sail No	Helm	Crew	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	Pts
1st	AUS 8	Darren Bundock	Glen Ashby	14	-23	2	2	8	1	1	6	34
2nd	CAN 7	Oskar Johansson	Kevin Stittle	-21	1	3	1	4	19	7	4	39
3rd	FRA 71	Yann Guichard	Alexandre Guyader	4	9	1	3	13	4	5	-23	39
4th	GER 1	Roland Gaebler	Gunnar Struckman	3	3	4	9	-30	18	2	5	44
5th	ITA 257	Francesco Marcolini	Edoardi Bianchi	11	7	10	5	1	(52 OCS)	10	2	46
6th	NED 1	Mitch Booth	Pim Nieuwenhuis	7	2	6	8	-26	22	4	3	52
7th	ESP 1	Fernando Echavarri	Anton Paz	1	14	8	11	23	(52 OCS)	6	7	70
8th	USA 808	John Lovell	Charlie Ogletree	2	5	29	(52 DNF)	3	16	3	13	71
9th	FRA 1	Xavier Revil	Cristophe Espagnon	18	12	14	6	6	(52 OCS)	8	8	72
10th	FRA 5	Billy Besson	Arnaud Jarlegan	19	-20	7	4	5	6	16	16	73
11th	AUT 3	Roman Hagara	Hans Peter Steinacher	10	25	12	15	2	9	(52 DNF)	1	74
12th	NZL 121	Aaron McIntosh	Mark Kennedy	17	8	5	7	10	13	-24	15	75
13th	ARG 1	Santiago Lange	Carlos Espinola	15	10	13	12	-17	8	12	10	80
14th	GRE 7	Iordanis Paschalidis	Konstantine Trigonis	6	-24	20	16	9	5	17	12	85
15th	GBR 447	Andrew Walsh	Edward Barney	5	4	21	-28	22	10	14	14	90
16th	UKR 11	Pavlo Kalynchev	Andrey Shaufranyuk	9	19	-24	21	15	15	11	9	99
17th	RUS 97	Andrey Kirilyuk	Valery Ushkov	16	13	15	13	-33	12	18	19	106
18th	GBR 436	Leigh McMillan	Will Howden	20	21	9	(52 DNF)	14	24	9	11	108
19th	BEL 7	Carolijn Brouwer	Sebbe Godefroid	12	11	19	10	27	(52 OCS)	15	21	115
20th	GBR 7	Rob Wilson	Mark Bulkeley	13	15	11	23	21	-30	13	22	118
21st	GER 7	Johannes Polgar	Florian Spalteholz	27	22	18	14	20	3	19	(52 OCS)	123
22nd	ESP 23	Toni Rivas	Fabian Escude	34	6	-36	17	25	7	20	17	126
23rd	DEN 1	Allan Norregaard	Michael Risoer	22	18	17	22	11	17	21	(52 OCS)	128
24th	PUR 1	Enrique Figueroa	Jorge Hernandez	8	17	28	32	31	11	27	(52 OCS)	154
25th	GBR 431	John Gimson	Stuart Bithell	26	-29	16	27	18	20	23	25	155
26th	NZL 11	Bruce Kendall	Blair Tuke	31	-38	30	24	7	21	31	18	162
27th	GER 5	Tino Mittelmeier	Niko Mittelmeier	23	32	(52 DNF)	29	16	2	30	33	165
28th	AUT 8	Thomas Zajac	Thomas Czajka	29	16	25	31	-32	14	32	24	171
29th	RUS 7	Sergey Dzhienbaev	Maxim Semenov	24	-40	27	20	19	25	35	26	176
30th	NZL 1	Rex Sellers	Brett Sellers	32	26	23	-33	24	27	22	27	181
31st	GBR 3	Tom Phipps	Marcus Lynch	43	(52 DNF)	22	19	28	23	26	28	189
32nd	CHN 58	You Jia Lu	Xiu Ke Chen	30	37	34	25	12	(52 OCS)	28	29	195
33rd	BRA 7	Bruno Di Bernaldi	Mario Tinoco	33	27	35	26	29	(52 OCS)	25	34	209
34th	AUS 322	Brett Burvill	Ryan Duffield	35	33	32	30	34	26	-37	20	210
35th	AUS 13	Rohan langworthy	Jack Benson	25	34	31	18	-40	35	38	32	213
36th	NZL 84	Nigel Williams	Jeremy Stephenson	38	36	26	-39	37	33	33	30	233
37th	POL 1	Piotr Kowalewski	Maciey Klosowicz	37	31	33	34	-42	32	29	38	234
38th	GER 17	Eckart Kaphengst	Rasmus Toepsch	28	30	(52 DNF)	52 DNC	36	34	34	31	245
39th	NZL 73	Dave Shaw	Susan Shaw	36	35	37	37	-38	31	36	36	248
40th	NZL 77	Paul Francis	Aaron Duncan	40	28	(52 DNF)	36	41	36	41	35	257
41st	VEN 11	Saba Yamil	Cendiza Gonzalo	39	39	38	-41	35	29	40	37	257
42nd	AUS 300	Damian Ford	Mark Edmonds	(52 DNS)	41	40	35	45	28	39	39	267
43rd	CHN 1	Bo Lin	Shan Feng Yang	44	42	39	38	-48	41	42	40	286
44th	AUS 285	Paul Peterson	Matt Thackray	42	44	44	44	39	40	45	-46	298
45th	NZL 70	David Mead	Chris Burgess	-48	43	42	40	47	43	46	42	303
46th	AUS 305	Allan Gamble	Kim Nicholas	46	46	45	42	-49	37	47	45	308
47th	GER/NZL 88/8	Justus Wolf	Justus Maus	45	45	43	46	-51	45	44	43	311
48th	AUS/GBR 406	Stephen Medwell	Stuart Offer	41	(52 DNF)	41	43	46	39	52 DNF	52 DNC	314
49th	CHN 2	An Jie Lu	Xie Hai Zhuang	47	(52 DNF)	48	45	50	42	43	41	316
50th	NZL 88	William Caunce	Andrew Springford	(52 DNF)	47	46	47	44	38	52 DNF	44	318
51st	AUS 967	Paul Raymond	Nicholas Raymond	-49	48	47	48	43	44	48	47	325