Photos: Thom Touw

Third consecutive World Championship secured for Belcher/Page

As Mills/Clarke and Westerhoff/Berkhout remain tied going into tomorrow's 470 Worlds medal race

Friday May 18th 2012, Author: Luissa Smith, Location: Spain

On the penultimate day of racing at the 2012 470 World Championships, Mat Belcher and Malcolm Page (AUS) secured their third consecutive World Championship title, with their win in race 12 sealing victory for the pair.

In the 470 Women Gold Fleet, the teams from China and Poland have qualified their nations to the 2012 Olympic Games. The final two Olympic qualification places in the 470 Women event will be fought out on Saturday’s final race between the teams representing Croatia, Austria and Russia. With only 4 points separating them – everything is at stake.

It was another shifty day with a breeze of 12-14 knots.

470 Men

The 470 Men favourites Mat Belcher/Malcolm Page have on paper wrapped up the World Championship title with a bullet in race 12, to make it a hat trick Championship for them. Their 12-race scoreline includes wins in eight races – an unprecedented achievement. Those wins did not come easy, and several times the pair found themselves nearer the back of the fleet than the front.

Malcolm Page is the most successful 470 sailor ever and, in his previous partnership with Nathan Wilmot, also secured victory at the 2004, 2005 and 2007 World Championships along with Olympic Goldin Beijing.

On crossing the line and sealing victory, Page said, “I was very excited. I gave Mat a lot of pats on the back and a few hugs here and there. This is my sixth 470 Worlds title, but I am as excited as the first.”

Commenting on Saturday’s medal race aspirations, Page continued: “We will just go and see what comes tomorrow. I am sure we will fight hard. We will wait and see what the weather brings tomorrow to see what the exact plan will be, but we won’t be jumping the start and we will be racing hard.”

In theory, Pierre Leboucher/Vincent Garos (FRA) also have the silver medal in their pockets. An OCS could unseat them, but there is no chance the French will let that happen. They just have to sail the course to claim their medal. So the battle is on for the bronze medal.

For the two Greek teams through to the Medal Race, tomorrow will decide which of them goes to the Olympics. Panagiotis Kampouridis/Efstathios Papadopoulos just have to finish ahead of Panagiotis Mantis/Pavlos Kagialis to secure selection. For Mantis/Kagialis to come out on top, they need to finish six boats ahead of Kampouridis/ Papadopoulos.

Top 20 results:

Pos Sail no Helm Crew R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 Tot Net
1  AUS 11 Mathew Belcher Malcolm Page
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
5
1
5
20
1
 40 20
2  FRA 44 Pierre Leboucher Vincent Garos
1
3
9
3
3
7
13
3
3
3
1
3
 52 39
3  FIN 7 Joonas Lindgren Niklas Lindgren
3
3
1
4
1
10
OCS
11
2
8
14
2
 92 59
4  CRO 83 Sime Fantela Igor Marenic
5
1
4
1
7
4
11
9
6
7
4
24
 83 59
5  ARG 7 Lucas Calabrese Juan de la Fuente
4
6
2
12
2
7
1
14
9
12
8
5
 82 68
6  ISR 7 Gideon Kliger Eran Sela
6
BFD
3
5
2
2
8
2
5
4
26
10
 106 73
7  ESP 9 Onán Barreiros Aarón Sarmiento
8
3
5
2
10
9
7
6
16
27
2
7
 102 75
8  GRE 165 Panagiotis Kampouridis Efstathios Papadopoulos
8
4
8
2
13
3
17
4
14
14
5
4
 96 79
9  JPN 4 Ryunosuke Harada Yugo Yoshida
7
4
4
6
4
7
9
8
20
20
3
9
 101 81
10  GRE 1 Panagiotis Mantis Pavlos Kagialis
2
2
6
4
9
4
10
23
18
11
7
19
 115 92
11  POR 1 Alvaro Marinho Miguel Nunes
5
2
2
1
12
1
18
16
15
9
25
13
 119 94
12  JPN 12 Tetsuya Matsunaga Kimihiko Imamura
12
12
5
11
3
15
12
7
7
24
10
6
 124 100
13  AUS 13 Sam Kivell Will Ryan
2
7
5
6
5
11
5
21
19
21
6
14
 122 101
14  FRA 27 Sofian Bouvet Guillarm Vincent
1
9
7
8
8
6
19
13
8
16
9
22
 126 104
15  GER 10 Ferdinand Gerz Patrick Follmann
25
5
7
9
11
5
14
10
10
1
19
17
 133 108
16  RUS 2 Mikhail Sheremetyev Maxim Sheremetyev
14
5
2
7
15
22
16
12
12
2
16
8
 131 109
17  FRA 7 Nicolas Charbonnier Jeremie Mion
7
1
11
12
10
24
4
1
25
10
23
15
 143 118
18  KOR 111 Gunwoo Park Sungmin Cho
10
4
14
6
5
4
OCS
19
31
13
12
11
 162 129
19  NED 1 Sven Coster Kalle Coster
20
9
12
2
14
5
28
15
13
15
13
18
 164 136
20  AUT 3 Matthias Schmid Florian Reichstädter
16
6
3
5
16
18
6
17
21
17
22
12
 159 137

 

470 Women

“Let the bell ring for the medal race!” was the exclamation of Lobke Berkhout (NED) after she came ashore to discover that having gone into today on equal points with Hannah Mills/Saskia Clark (GBR), she and helm Lisa Westerhof end the day on an equal 59 points apiece!

“It is funny to finish on equal points again – we have never been in this situation, although we know what it is to be so tight going into a Medal Race. It is going to be interesting and the four boats only want one thing,” Berkhout commented.

In third place, just one point behind the top two teams, are Jo Aleh/Olivia Powrie (NZL), with previous Championship leaders Camille Lecointre/Mathilde Geron (FRA) 3 points further back in fourth.

Aleh is excited by the closeness of the teams going into the Medal Race: “It is quite impressive. It is going to be a pretty good race tomorrow. Somebody’s going to be pretty annoyed at the end of it – that’s the first thing I can think of. With four of us that close it is winner takes all – just don’t stuff it up.”

Further down the leaderboard and the focus was on Olympic qualification, which was accomplished perfectly by China’s Xu Xiaomei/Yu Chunyan. Their win in race 11, followed up with an 8th placing in race 12, guarantees that China will be at the Olympics. Now it is game on amongst the three Chinese teams to determine who will be selected to that place.

Poland’s Agnieszka Skrzypulec/Jolanta Ogar made history today by becoming the first ever Polish 470 Women team to qualify to the Olympics. They knew they needed to be towards the front half of the pack in race 11 which they achieved and then just needed a safe finish in race 12 – job done and the Olympics beckon. To say the team were thrilled is an understatement, “Now I don’t feel we are at the Olympics and I think it is going to be some time to realise we will really be there. The plan was to sail safe and smart which we did,” said Skrzypulec.

Not so much fun for the teams from Austria, Croatia and Russia who face their final showdown tomorrow as they compete for the final two nation places. With 4 points separating the teams it is unpredictably close.

The host nation’s hopes were dashed today as Spain’s defending World Champions, Tara Pacheco/Berta Betanzos were over the line in race 12 and tumbled down the leaderboard to 18th overall.

Top 20 results:

Pos Sail no Helm Crew R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 Tot Net
1  GBR 118 Hannah Mills Saskia Clark
BFD
2
7
7
1
3
13
2
1
1
21
1
 87 59
2  NED 11 Lisa Westerhof Lobke Berkhout
6
1
1
1
7
6
18
10
2
3
20
4
 79 59
3  NZL 75 Jo Aleh Polly Powrie
3
3
4
2
1
4
10
16
7
9
12
5
 76 60
4  FRA 9 camille Lecointre Mathilde Geron
1
8
3
5
2
1
8
14
22
2
10
9
 85 63
5  FRA 4 Ingrid Petitjean Nadege Douroux
1
5
4
5
2
1
12
6
15
25
8
19
 103 78
6  BRA 187 Martine Grael Isabel Swan
7
6
5
18
4
20
17
3
3
5
16
7
 111 91
7  ISR 311 Gil Cohen Vered Bouskila
7
2
1
1
10
5
24
OCS
19
4
3
16
 120 92
8  JPN 1 Ai Kondo Wakako Tabata
4
1
5
2
17
4
7
18
17
8
9
OCS
 120 92
9  DEN 143 Henriette Koch Lene Sommer
14
5
9
9
5
2
15
1
5
14
17
14
 110 93
10  BRA 177 Fernanda de Oliveira Ana Barbachan
10
6
7
10
3
10
25
9
10
20
4
6
 120 95
11  GER 21 Kathrin Kadelbach Friederike Belcher
2
7
6
4
12
2
16
19
8
16
OCS
10
 130 102
12  ITA 23 Giulia Conti Giovanna Micol
15
3
2
4
9
19
11
4
21
15
19
2
 124 103
13  JPN 4321 Yuka Yoshisako Noriko Okuma
23
9
8
12
13
18
6
8
4
7
25
3
 136 111
14  CHN 616 Xu Xiaomei Yu Chunyan
10
10
10
3
21
20
20
13
6
11
1
8
 133 112
15  CHN 1221 Wang Xiaoli Huang Xufeng
12
12
13
17
4
13
5
OCS
13
12
5
12
 146 118
16  ARG 8 Maria Fernanda Sesto Consuelo Monsegur
5
7
9
7
7
8
9
17
9
23
24
17
 142 118
17  SLO 64 Tina Mrak Teja Cerne
14
12
13
6
3
17
2
20
26
21
2
11
 147 121
18  ESP 696 Tara Pacheco Berta Betanzos
9
4
2
15
6
6
26
12
11
24
7
OCS
 150 122
19  USA 1736 Amanda Clark Sarah Lihan
BFD
9
3
3
8
9
3
22
20
13
23
13
 154 126
20  POL 11 Agnieszka Skrzypulec Jolanta Ogar
4
15
12
8
9
10
14
15
18
10
11
20
 146 126

 

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