RS300 Sprint Championships at Rutland Sailing Club

A fantastic entry of 24 boats appeared on the starting blocks of the annual Sprint Championship hosted once again by the excellent Rutland Sailing Club.

The first round of three, 20 minute races on Saturday morning saw the athletes subjected to a wind-assisted 11m/s down the back straight which caused all kind of problems to just about everyone at some point. Not least amongst these were Matt 'Asafa Powell' Jenkins and Steve 'Harold Abrahams' Bolland who, sailing line abreast and giving it some, were presented with an upside-down 100 just as they rounded the bottom mark. With a sprinkling of good fortune they both managed to miss the 100, each other and the mark before resuming battle on the next leg.

After 3 races in the boisterous, and decidedly chilly, conditions everyone was glad of a chance of a break before round 2. The half hour beat back to the club felt like more of a long-distance race than a sprint, however.

Round 2 and we were split into two evenly-seeded fleets based on the morning's results. Blessedly the wind was a little calmer allowing more concentration on boatspeed and rather less on simply staying upright. After another three closely fought races it was another marathon beat back home, some welcome rest and calorie intake and seeing who had survived the gold/silver fleet split for the Sunday racing.

Sunday morning was bright, warmer and a little less breezy. The fleet was definitely feeling the effects of the previous day's exertions. Walking was particularly difficult. I, like many I suspect, was feeling more like athletes from the Valeriy Borzov and Alan Wells era rather than the current crop of sprinting legends. No WADA representative was on hand to take samples but we would all have passed anyway, as long as Paracetamol is not on the banned substance list.

And so to the racing. The silver fleet was dominated by Tom 'Linford Christie' Moore, back in the fleet after a few years absence and making a visit back home from the diamond mines of Zambia. In 2nd spot was James 'Carl Lewis' Cowlishaw, making a visit south from the coal mines of Yorkshire followed by a quadruplet of boats separated by only 2 points (Mark Donnelly, Mark Henman, Dan Treloar and Andy Bayliss – legends all).

In the gold fleet there was a potential mouth-watering clash between the two dominant helms of round two who had each scored 3 bullets - Phil 'Usain Bolt' Bishop and 'Abrahams' Bolland. After winning the opening 3 races, however, Usain did his normal trick and eased up at the 60m mark and smiled to the crowd. In the end he won 5 of the 6 race final series to finish well ahead of the crowd. Best of the rest were Harry 'Maurice Green' McVicar and 'Asafa' Jenkins. Also showing well, and having some excellent individual race results, were Martin 'Donovan Bailey' Harrison and Richard 'Tyson Gay' Le Mare.

There's an excellent series of screen shots from Phil's boom-mounted GoPro as he chases down Bolland in race 1 (scroll left to see the sequence in the photo gallery above).

Overall Results: