Athens 2004 - Day 5 Team GB Report
by Sacha Oswald, RYA 18 Aug 2004 21:14 BST
Nick Dempsey wins bronze in the men's windsurfing class at the Athens 2004 Olympic regatta © Richard Langdon
Great Britain’s sailors in gold medals positions in three classes
Great Britain’s sailors are in gold medal positions in three classes on day five of the 2004 Olympic Games. Double Olympic medallist Ben Ainslie is leading the Finn class, fellow Olympic gold medallist Shirley Robertson and crewmembers Sarah Ayton and Sarah Webb are heading up the Yngling class, and Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield, who finished an agonising fourth in Sydney, are leading the 470 men’s class.
Robertson, Ayton and Webb have been leading the Yngling class for the majority of the regatta. The three person women’s keelboat is a new class for Athens 2004 and it looks like this experienced team have got a good grasp for it. They scored a fourth and a sixth in today’s sea breeze conditions to maintain their overall lead by seven points from Dorte O.Jenson, Helle Jespersen and Christina Otzen of Denmark. They now have two races tomorrow before a rest day on Friday and then the final day of racing on Saturday 21 August. However, with nothing worse than a sixth on their score sheet, two good race results could see the Olympic medal wrapped up with a day to spare.
Ayton commented on what she thought gave them the edge, “We have good boat speed downwind. We have spent the last six months working on our downwind speed and it seems to be paying off.” She continued, “We are quite excited but we do have to just take each race as it comes and try not to think about the end result. We get just one discard and we have three races left, so we will just have to try and get a solid result.”
In the Finn class, Ainslie continues on his comeback from a poor start on race day one where he was disqualified. Since then he has been like a man possessed and has put in an amazing series of results including three first places, a second, a third and a fourth. This performance sees him leading the fleet by eight points from the 2003 world silver medallist Rafael Trujillo of Spain. Like the Yngling class, Ainslie has two races tomorrow followed by a rest day, with Saturday being the final day of his event.
Ainslie said, “Just because I have lost my discard it doesn’t mean that I can start sailing conservatively. I still need to win the starts and stay on the right side of everything. It’s certainly tough and nerve racking with just one discard.” Commenting on tomorrow he added, “Tomorrow I will need to try and do the same as I did today as not much has changed - it is just about getting good results. It won’t be until the last race that I might start thinking about who is next to me in the points system.”
Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield, like the British Yngling team, have also been leading their event from very early on. Competing in the 470 men’s class, they too have put in a very consistent score line, including a second and a third place today, to lead the event by six points from Olympians Paul Foerster and Kevin Burnham of America. Their event also concludes on Saturday 21 August.
When asked what is different from Sydney, Rogers commented, “We feel that we are a very different pairing from Sydney, we were a lot younger and had so many things missing from our skills such as technique and mental toughness, but we are older and more experienced here in Athens.”
On racing tomorrow, Glanfield said, “We can’t afford to be too conservative, we still need to push as hard as we can.”
After a couple of days of delayed schedules, the 49er class finally got underway today and added a further three races to their score cards. Great Britain’s Chris Draper and Olympic silver medallist Simon Hiscocks were relieved to get racing and sailed a good day. Scoring a fifth, sixth and a third in the days races, added to a ninth from yesterday, places them second overall, just two points behind Marcus Baur and Max Groy of Germany. The 49ers are the only class to compete in 16 races and are allowed to discard their two worst results.
Elsewhere on the race courses, Great Britain’s Paul Goodison moved up to sixth place overall in the Laser class after scoring an eleventh and a seventh today and team mate Nick Dempsey is also lying sixth in the Mistral class after finishing second and fifteenth in the days racing.
Unfortunately for 470 sailors Christina Bassadone and Katherine Hopson, a disqualification for them in the eighth race, for not giving enough room around a mark to a fellow competitor, saw them drop to ninth place overall, although the points are still extremely close. Team mate Natasha Sturges is also lying ninth overall in the women’s Mistral class.
Racing is due to commence at 13 00 (local time) tomorrow and the following classes will be racing; 470 men and women, Yngling, Mistral men and women, Finn, 49er, Laser and Europe.
Results after day 5:
470 Men
1, Nick Rogers/Joe Glanfield, GBR (2,3,9,4,(18),5,2,3) 28 pts
2, Paul Foerster/Kevin Burnham, USA (1,8,2,(15),9,4,3,7) 34 pts
3, Kazuto Seki/Kenjiro Todoroki, JPN (3,7,(21),18,7,12,1,9) 57 pts
470 Women
1, Sofia Bekatorou/Aimilia Tsoulfa, GRE (1,2,2,13,1,1,(14),1) 21 pts
2, Vesna Dekleva/Klara Maucec, SLO (3,5,14,(18),2,15,1,2) 42 pts
3, Susanne Ward/Michaela Meehan, DEN (11,1,4,3,13,8,5,(16)) 45 pts
GBR
9, Christina Bassadone/Katherine Hopson (5,14,15,4,5,6,17,(11)) 66 pts
Mistral Men
1, Przemyslaw Miarczynski, POL (6,1,1) 8 pts
2, Nikolaos Kaklamanakis, GRE (1,4,4) 9 pts
3, Ricardo Santos, BRA (4,6,2) 12 pts
GBR
6, Nick Dempsey (2,11,15) 28 pts
Mistral Women
1, Lai Shan Lee, HKG (3,8,5,1) 17 pts
2, Alessandra Sensini, ITA (7,1,6,3) 17 pts
3, Faustine Merret, FRA (2,13,1,4) 20 pts
GBR
9, Natasha Sturges (16,10,3,9) 38 pts
Laser
1, Andreas Geritzer, AUT (4,1,(34),7,1,2) 15 pts
2, Robert Scheidt, BRA (3,(8),1,3,8,4) 19 pts
3, Vasilij Zbogar, SLO (21),13,3,8,4,1) 29 pts
GBR
6, Paul Goodison (13,3,(28),5,11,7) 39 pts
Europe
1, Sarah Blanck, AUS (3,7,2,(11),9,2) 23 pts
2, Siren Sundby, NOR (1,3,(DSQ),1,19,4) 28 pts
3, Lenka Smidova, CZE (10,(13),1,13,1,6) 31 pts
GBR
22, Laura Baldwin (21,14,9,(23),20,22) 86 pts
49er
1, Marcus Baur/Max Groy, GER (9,2,1,8) 20 pts
2, Chris Draper/Simon Hiscocks, GBR (8,5,6,3) 22 pts
3, Iker Martinez/Xavier Fernandez, ESP (3,11,7,5) 26 pts
Yngling
1, Shirley Robertson/Sarah Ayton/Sarah Webb, GBR (5,4,1,1,4,3,4,(6)) 22 pts
2, Dorte O. Jensen/Helle Jespersen/Christina Otzen, DEN (1,(14),5,5,5,6,3,4) 29 pts
3, Ruslana Taran/Ganna Kalinina/Svitlana Matevusheva, UKR ((10),3,9,3,7,2,2,9) 35 pts
Finn
1, Ben Ainslie, GBR (9,(DSQ),1,1,4,1,2,3) 21 pts
2, Rafael Trujillo, ESP (8,3,3,6,2,3,(OCS),4) 29 pts
3, Mateusz Kusznierewicz, POL (3,1,6,4,11,(OCS),17,1) 43 pts
You can follow the racing online at www.gbrsailing.org.uk where you will get live updates from the dinghy park and the results as they come in, as well as all the gossip from the Team GB camp. You can also leave messages of support for the team and your comments on the racing.
Full results with mark by mark roundings are at sailing.org/olympics2004