British sailors at the Perth 2011 World Championships had both positive and negative outcomes on eleventh day of competition
13 December 2011
With World Championship sailing fully underway in Perth, the eleventh day of competition ended with a mixed bag of both good results and setbacks for GBR sailors. The day started with the heartbreaking news that G4S 49ers Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes were forced to withdraw from the event following a rib strain to Rhodes on Monday; however, the duo plan to resume sailing as soon as they are able.
Soon afterwards, Star sailors Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson’s were forced to pull out of their first race of the day when Percy’s back gave out during the race. The 2008 Olympic gold medallists had an overnight lead with a 12 point margin and were in third place when the injury hit. With the Star class scheduled to have a layday on Wednesday (14 December) Percy will undergo physio treatment and the team will decide over the next 24 hours whether he will be in a position to continue the regatta. Simpson emphasized that the most important issue now is getting Iain Percy’s health back on track for the Olympics, despite their frustration of not being able to defend their world title.
RYA Olympic Manager Stephen Park reflected on a challenging event so far, but was confident his charges would hold their own over the remainder of the regatta:
“It’s disappointing for those guys who’ve been working so hard towards this regatta, and certainly is not how we’d hoped the regatta would unfold, but it’s important to keep these things in perspective. Although World Championship titles are important, our eyes are on the bigger prize of the Olympics in Weymouth in 2012.
“Despite these setbacks we’re still racing competitively in the remaining events and hopeful that we’ll see some more of our sailors on the podium before the event concludes.”
As Parks predicted, other Skandia Team GBR sailors performed strongly in remaining classes and brought a silver lining to the end of the day.
The Match Racing team of Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor booked their berth in the women’s match racing quarter-finals, rounding off the repechage stage in style winning all four races of the day, and 13 wins to 2 losses for the overall stage, meaning they will race tomorrow in the quarter final with Netherlands’ Mandy Mulder.
After an impressive day in the Laser Event Olympic Champion Goodison is in second place overall with 4,1 for his day’s two races, while Nick Thompson is in equal third on points in the same class, having posted 8,2 today. Penny Clark and Katrina Hughes are fourth overall in the 470 women’s event with a third and a ninth from their two races while Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark rise to sixth overall with a ninth and a sixth for the day. Two of Skandia Team GBR’s remaining 49er crews finished the day ranked in the top ten of the class – John Pink and Rick Peacock are seventh with Dave Evans and Ed Powys at ninth.
G4S 4teen’s Laser sailor Juan Maegli also had a successful day on the water, working his way up the rankings to end the day in 48th.
For the latest up-to-date results please check back at www.g4ssport.com, visit our Facebook page or follow @G4S_Sport on Twitter.