Tornado Worlds at Massachusetts, USA Overall

by Royal Yachting Association 29 Sep 2002 13:56 BST

Aussies take gold medal at Tornado world championships

Martha's Vineyard provided some much needed sunshine for everyone on the final day of racing at the Tornado world championships, along with 18-20 knots of breeze for the first race of the day. This died shortly after the first race, but filled back in at around 12-13 knots for the final race.

2000 Olympic silver medallists Darren Bundock/John Forbes from Australia sailed the best day in the fleet, scoring their third bullet of the championships, followed up with a fourth place finish, to take the world title and gold medal by three points from the 2002 European champions Olivier Backes/Laurent Voiron of France. The bronze medal went to Mitch Booth/Herbert Dercksen from the Netherlands.

Sadly for the team GBR sailors, they could not do what was needed on the final day to move up the scoreboard. Leigh McMillan/Mark Bulkeley were the highest placed Brits, adding a seventeenth and a fourteenth to their score, to put them in thirteenth place overall. One place behind were team mates Hugh Styles/Adam May who finished in fourteenth place, with Rob Wilson/Will Howden moving up from twentieth overall to fifteenth position after scoring their best results of the regatta in race one of the final day, a fifth place.

May commented, "we felt we have had probably our worst event of the year. We have already made plans for the winter, and we'll fit in a lot more racing and speed work than we managed to last year. I think the entire British squad suffered from just training together last winter, we need to make sure we do enough training with fast foreign teams to keep track of what is going on."

RYA Olympic Manager Stephen Park commented, "With the Tornado class undergoing a period of rapid development, it is clear that the GBR teams are off the pace at the moment. The difficult conditions at this event have not helped, but we will need to carefully review and analyse these championship results to ensure our sailors are able to get back into the leading group in this class as they have been previously."

Overall Results:

Pos	Helm	Crew	Nat	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	Pts
1	Darren Bundock	John Forbes	AUS	2	(6)	1	1	2	5	1	4	16
2	Olivier Backes	Laurent Voiron	FRA	3	3	3	2	3	3	2	(7)	19
3	Mitch Booth	Herbert Dercksen	NED	(12)	1	7	3	1	2	8	6	28
GBR
13	Leigh McMillan	Mark Bulkeley	GBR	28	7	12	(DNF)	4	6	17	14	89
14	Hugh Styles	Adam May	GBR	15	13	(OCS)	16	5	14	16	21	100
15	Rob Wilson	Will Howden	GBR	7	24	23	14	17	(26)	5	16	105
26	Steven Lovegrove	Martin Sellars	GBR	31	17	20	31	23	19	26	(DNF)	166
42	Matthew Eeles	Marcus Lynch	GBR	33	35	(OCS)	21	41	34	DNF	DNS	280
44	Leo Farrow	Tris Lamb	GBR	42	39	(DNC)	44	44	43	41	36	290

For full results log on to the official event website; www.aclass-tornado-worlds2002.org