Tornado Worlds at Club Nautico San Isidro, Argentina - Day 1
by Event Press 6 Dec 2006 05:58 GMT
5-10 December 2006
Good start for French Xavier Revil and Christophe Espagnon
The first day of racing started with light and shifty wind conditions. The RC postponed on the water the start of race 1 until the conditions improved.
7 of the 48 Tornados that started the light SE 6-8 knots wind race were OCSs including Olympic Medalists USA John Lovell & Charlie Ogletree and NZL Aaron McIntosh & Bruce Kendall.
Double Olympic Medalists AUT Roman Hagara & Hans Peter Steinacher lead from the start followed by number 1 ranked FRA Xavier Revil & Christophe Espagnon. The Austrian team opened a comfortable distance to cross the line in first followed by the French.
The clean right side of the gate in the second upwind paid off for PUR Enrique Figueroa & Jorge Hernandez and NED Mitch Booth & Pim Nieuwenhis who finished 3rd and 4th consecutively.
The SE picked up and the Tornados started race 2 with a 10-12 knots breeze and gusts reaching 14 knots. After a clean start the fleet divided itself to both sides of the course.
Once again, the leader, AUS Darren Bundock & Glenn Ashby, opened a good distance. Behind them the GRE team of Iordanis Paschaladis & Constantinos Trigonis and GER Johannes Polgar & Florian Spalteholz were closely fighting for the 2nd position
On the second downwind the jib of the Ozzies came down and the lead they had wasn't enough to keep them ahead of the second, GER Johannes Polgar & Florian Spalteholz. The Germans took the bullet, followed by the Ozzies.
The Greek team of Paschaladis & Trigonis crossed the line in 3rd, followed by ESP Javier Padron & Antonio Cuevas Mons in 4th and FRA Xavier Revil & Christophe Espagnon in 5th.
Winners of Race 1, AUT Roman Hagara & Hans Peter Steinacher, crossed the line in 8th.
Top 5 after 2 races:
1 FRA Xavier Revil & Christophe Espagnon 7 pts
2 AUS Darren Bundock & Glenn Ashby 8 pts
3 AUT Roman Hagara & Hans Peter Steinacher 9 pts
4 GER Johannes Polgar & Florian Spalteholz 16 pts
5 NED Mitch Booth & Pim Nieuwenhis 16 pts
Full results and pictures at tornado2006.cnsi.org.ar