Barcelona Olympic Classes Sailing Week Overall

by Royal Yachting Association 10 Apr 2003 09:16 BST

Early season start sees gold medals for RYA Team GBR

The 2003 Barcelona Olympic Sailing Week concluded on Wednesday 9 April with gold medals in two classes for the lottery funded RYA Team GBR, proving that the hard months of winter training has paid off.

Barcelona Olympic Sailing Week kicked off the Olympic classes season, which saw all of the eleven Olympic classes competing, although in some fleets numbers were down as many competitors chose to train in Palma ready for the Princess Sofia Regatta which starts on Monday of next week.

Over the four-day regatta racing has been tight, especially in the 52-boat 49er class, with the top two RYA Team GBR boats battling it out for first place. Going into the final day world silver medallist Chris Draper and his crew, 2000 Olympic silver medallist, Simon Hiscocks were enjoying close competition with team mates and world bronze medallists Paul Brotherton and Mark Asquith, and were both tied on points for first place.

After seven races, and the final day bringing perfect conditions of 15-20 knots, it was Draper and Hiscocks who came out the victors, winning by five points from European bronze medallists Christoffer Sundby/Frode Bovim from Norway, with Brotherton and Asquith finishing in bronze medal position.

Draper commented, “We are really pleased with how we sailed and had a good regatta. There are a few areas that we still need to work on but we are looking forward to competing in Palma next week and hopefully repeating this result.”

It was also success for RYA Team GBR in the three-women keelboat class, the Yngling, which will be making its debut at the Olympic in 2004. Shirley Robertson, who won gold at the 2000 Olympics in the Europe class and has swapped her single-hander to sail with Inga Leask and Sarah Ayton, sailed an excellent regatta scoring a number of first places to finish four points in front of the Russian trio of Ekaterina Skoudins, Tatiana Lartseva and Ekaterina Kovalenko. Current world champions Monica Azon, Laia Tutzo and Julia Garcia of Spain finished in third place overall.

The Tornado class saw a good turnout of 57 boats including many of the worlds best multihull sailors, including European champions and world silver medallists Olivier Backes/Laurent Voiron of France, current world champion Darren Bundock of Australia and 2002 Olympic Test Event champions Roman Hagara/Hans-Peter Steinacher of Austria, taking part.

After five races it was the Spanish pairing of Fernando Echavarri/Anton Paz who shone through to take the regatta by two points from Darren Bundock/Glen Ashby with French sailors Xavier Revil/Laurent Guillemette in third place. RYA Team GBR sailors Leigh McMillan and Mark Bulkeley showed good pace, winning the first race of the regatta and finishing sixth overall with team mates Hugh Styles and Adam May finishing in tenth place.

Thirteenth place seemed to be the call of the day for RYA Team GBR in many of the other fleets. Kirsty Bonar put in a good run of results including a third place to finish in thirteenth place in the Europe class, and in the 470 class, Graham Vials sailing with Bevis Field and Christina Bassadone and Katherine Hopson also matched this result.

RYA Olympic Manager Stephen Park commented, “It is great to see that the hard work that both Chris and Simon and Shirley, Inga and Sarah have put in over the winter months has paid off at this regatta. Although it is early in the season it is pleasing to see these results and we hope that they can continue to perform at the next Olympic class regatta in Palma.”

The next Olympic class regatta on the calendar is the Princess Sofia Regatta which takes place in Palma from the 14-18 April and will be the first test for many of the RYA Team GBR sailors to line up against their international competitors and establish whether all the training and efforts put in over recent months will pay off.

Overall Results:

49er

1	Chris Draper	Simon Hiscocks	GBR	(10)	1	2	4	3	2	3	15
2	Christoffer Sundby	Frode Bovim	NOR	3	8	1	1	(14)	5	2	20
3	Paul Brotherton	Mark Asquith	GBR	15	4	1	1	4	3	(20)	28
24	Stevie Morrison	Ben Rhodes	GBR	9	8	(18)	18	6	20	16	75

Yngling

1	Shirley Robertson	Inga Leask	Sarah Ayton	GBR	4	1	1	2	4	(9)	5	17
2	Ekaterina Skoudins	Tatiana Lartseva	Ekaterina Kovalenko	RUS	1	OCS)	3	1	2	5	9	21
3	Monica Azon	Laia Tutzo	Julia Garcia	ESP	2	3	4	6	6	2	(14)	23
15	Cathy Foster	Annie Lush	Jane Norris	GBR	13	11	10	14	RDF	13	(DNC)	73

Europe

1	Shen Xiaoying	CHN	6	2	2	(12)	6	16
2	Lenka Smidova	CZE	6	(7)	2	6	5	19
3	Lu Chunfeng	CHN	(14)	4	4	4	9	21
13	Kirsty Bonar	GBR	9	3	12	(16)	11	35

470 Men

1	Benjamin Bonnaud	Romain Bonnaud	FRA	7	1	1	3	4	8	(19)	2	7	33
2	Udi Gal	Didi Kliger	ISR	5	4	2	4	3	(14)	1	5	11	35
3	Javier Conte	Juan de la Fuente	ARG	3	6	6	2	7	2	(8)	6	5	35
13	Graham Vials	Bevis Field	GBR	12	7	5	13	14	18	7	16	(20)	92

470 Women

1	Stefanie Rothweiler	Monika Leu	GER	5	8	4	(20)	9	1	2	29
2	Nike Kornicki	Vered Boukila	ISR	1	5	1	4	12	(BFD)	8	31
3	Vlada Ilienko	Diana Krutskih	RUS	4	(16)	9	5	2	6	9	35
13	Christina Bassadone	Katherine Hopson	GBR	14	12	7	1	13	(BFD)	16	63

Finn

1	Sebastien Godefroid	BEL	(3)	2	3	1	1	1	1	9
2	Rafael Trujillo	ESP	1	1	1	3	(8)	2	5	13
3	Pascal Rambeau	FRA	4	4	2	(12)	4	3	4	21

Laser

1	Andreas Geritzer	AUT	1	3	3	2	(5)	5	14
2	Robbie McMillan	NZL	1	7	6	4	4	(17)	22
3	Philippe Bergmans	BEL	5	1	5	3	(12)	9	23
8	Ed Wright	GBR	12	14	2	10	(18)	1	39

Mistral Men

1	Zhou Yuanguo	CHN	2	2	2	3	5	9
2	Maxim Oberemko	UKR	1	1	5	8	11	15
3	Wu Zhiming	CHN	3	13	8	2	3	16

Mistral Women

1	Yin Jian	CHN	(DNS)	2	6	2	1	11
2	Anna Graczyk	POL	1	3	(5)	4	5	13
3	Lai Mingshuang	CHN	(DNS)	1	1	6	6	14

Star

1	Roberto Bermudez	Marcos Iglesias	ESP	1	1	(4)	3	3	1	1	10
2	Frederik Loof	Anders Ekstrom	SWE	2	2	2	1	1	(3)	2	10
3	Javier Aguado Blanco	Miguel Santa Ursula	ESP	(3)	3	1	2	2	2	3	13

Tornado

1	Fernando Echavarri	Anton Paz	ESP	4	(9)	3	10	2	18
2	Darren Bundock	Glen Ashby	AUS	8	6	1	5	(BFD)	20
3	Xavier Revil	Laurent Guillemette	FRA	2	14	10	2	6	20
6	Leigh McMillan	Mark Bulkeley	GBR	1	5	18	6	(19)	30
10	Hugh Styles	Adam May	GBR	5	4	22	20	7	36
37	Leo Farrow	Joffan Garcka	GBR	40	33	37	37	30	137
38	Andy Walsh	Ed Barney	GBR	(DNC)	36	29	45	31	141
41	James Smith	Ian Jamieson	GBR	37	37	33	41	(DNC)	148