49er Focus at Qingdao - Day Two Report
by Andy Rice 10 Aug 2008 16:40 BST
9-21 August 2008
Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes get off to a dream start
Exmouth lads Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes are not ones to show their nerves, but there's no doubt they were relieved to get day one of the Olympics out the way without getting in trouble. Not just that, but actually leading the regatta with solid scores of 4,3,5, while all their major rivals suffered at least one bad one.
The racing took place on Course A, right off the edge of the Olympic
Marina in Qingdao, and the breeze was sufficient in the first two
races for a bit of twin-stringing. It was paying - more often than not
- to tack in towards the shore, so boats at times were little more
than 20 metres from the breakwater.
The Brits always looked in good shape during the first two races. They
started well in the first and sailed towards the breakwater before
tacking. Left paid and they were second around the top mark. Losing
two places was disappointing, but no disaster.
The Spanish reigning Olympic Champions on the other hand sailed a
blinder of a first race, climbing from 4th through to 1st place. But
they had a torrid day after that, knocking in scores of 10,17 to end
up in 8th overall. The Aussies won the 2nd race, but had stuffed up
their 1st race after hitting the windward mark and taking a penalty
turn. The Ukrainians, who won silver in Athens, only broke into the
top 10 once.
It wasn't all plain sailing for Team Exmouth either. They had a
shocker of a start in the final race, with just three or four knots of
wind and a current that was in danger of sweeping people over the line
at the start. With the 1 knot tide in mind, Morrison was conservative
to the point of starting in bad air, while other teams like USA
drifted nicely off the line towards the shore, leading the fleet.
However, starting positions bore little resemblance to rounding
positions at the first mark. The wind - what little there was - was
all over the place. Team GBR rounded in the top 8, and chipped away
throughout the race to come in 5th. A steady and assured start for the
team that won gold in Qingdao at the Test Regatta 12 months ago.
49er Results: (3 races, no discard)
| Pos | Nat | Helm | Crew | R1 | R2 | R3 | Pts |
|---|
| 1 | GBR | Stephen Morrison | Ben Rhodes | 4 | 3 | 5 | 12 |
| 2 | ITA | Pietro Sibello | Gianfranco Sibello | 3 | 9 | 1 | 13 |
| 3 | DEN | Jonas Warrer | Martin Kirketerp Ibsen | 2 | 4 | 10 | 16 |
| 4 | FRA | Emmanuel Dyen | Yann Rocherieux | 7 | 8 | 4 | 19 |
| 5 | AUS | Nathan Outteridge | Ben Austin | 15 | 1 | 7 | 23 |
| 6 | BRA | Andre Fonseca | Rodrigo Duarte | 10 | 5 | 8 | 23 |
| 7 | AUT | Nico Delle - Karth | Nikolaus Resch | 9 | 2 | 14 | 25 |
| 8 | ESP | Iker Martinez de Lizarduy | Xabier Fernandez Gaztañaga | 1 | 10 | 17 | 28 |
| 9 | JPN | Akira Ishibashi | Yukio Makino | 8 | 17 | 3 | 28 |
| 10 | POR | Jorge Lima | Francisco Andrade | 12 | 7 | 9 | 28 |
| 11 | UKR | Rodion Luka | George Leonchuk | 6 | 11 | 12 | 29 |
| 12 | GER | Jan-Peter Peckolt | Hannes Peckolt | 16 | 6 | 11 | 33 |
| 13 | USA | Tim Wadlow | Christopher Rast | 5 | 14 | 15 | 34 |
| 14 | SWE | Jonas Lindberg | Kalle Torlén | 17 | 18 | 2 | 37 |
| 15 | CAN | Gordon Cook | Ben Remocker | 13 | 12 | 13 | 38 |
| 16 | POL | Marcin Czajkowski | Krzysztof Kierkowski | 19 | 15 | 6 | 40 |
| 17 | NOR | Christopher Gundersen | Frode Bovim | 11 | 13 | 18 | 42 |
| 18 | CRO | Pavle Kostov | Petar Cupac | 14 | 16 | 16 | 46 |
| 19 | CHN | Fei Li | Xianqiang Hu | 18 | 19 | 19 | 56 |
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