Hyeres World Cup gold for Team Brotherton-Asquith

by Paul Brotherton & Mark Asquith 1 May 2010 08:06 BST 25-30 April 2010

Hi all,

Well, we did it – we earned our first World Cup gold medal in Hyeres today!

At the beginning of the regatta we said we needed to get a result and we came down here and did exactly what we needed to do.

With a points margin of eight between us and the second placed Austrian boat, all we had to do was stay close to the competition in our medal race today and it panned out pretty well. We kept everything pretty chilled, the guys put us in positions where it was easy for us just to follow them round the track, so we were trying to keep our heads out of the boat and not let them get too far away from us.

It worked – but it wasn’t until the points had been fully confirmed that victory started to feel good. Until that point we were a little bit on edge!

This win gives us great confidence – Paul said at the beginning of the week, we can’t be scared of getting a result at some stage. We spend a lot of time training, and the regattas are there to get results from – so that was the focus for this one, and we’re very pleased we achieved that.

There’s a lot of things you can learn from a regatta like this. It seems to always generate a lot of situations, a lot of tactical plays and we’ve added on 10 or 15 really important things to our rating, our roles and responsibilities, that we wouldn’t have done if we weren’t here.

Without Skandia Team GBR, without the support network, our teammates and the camaraderie in the squad it’s almost impossible to get a result like this, so massive thanks to each and every one of them – and of course to Link, Ronstan, Orange, Steve Hopper and Ian Cleaver who’ve given us such invaluable personal support and encouragement

It’s been really great week – now for the long drive home!

Mark Asquith / Paul Brotherton