Giles Scott marks his return to Finn action with a gold at the Semaine Olympique Francais. The fifth and final leg of the EUROSAF
Champions Sailing Cup drew to a close on Sunday (13 October) with Giles
Scott claiming gold on his return to the Finn and the British Sailing
Team being awarded the EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup Nation Trophy. Only recently back from the America’s Cup with Italian team Luna
Rossa, the 2011 Finn World and European champion looked to be straight
back in the swing of things, with a first and fifth on the opening day
of the regatta in La Rochelle, France.
Scott continued to underline why getting back in a heavyweight dinghy
is like riding a bike to him with a further two race wins and three
seconds to cement his position at the top of the leaderboard on the
penultimate day of competition.
With a seven-point lead at the top going into Sunday’s medal race,
Scott needed to finish fourth or better and took third ahead of all his
four rivals. “It’s good to win, I suppose I could have fobbed it off on
something if I hadn’t but it’s nice not to have to do that,” said
Scott.
“It was very shifty, but I knew it would be from the forecast. I had
half an eye on the other guys but so many of them and in those
conditions you just have to sail your own race. I knew fourth or better
would do it and I don’t think I was lower than third all the way round.”
The British Sailing Team’s Mark Andrews finished fifth overall while a
second place finish in the medal race for 2013 Finn Junior European
Champion, Peter McCoy, saw him finish his regatta in eighth.
In the Women’s 470 event, Amy Seabright and Anna Carpenter opened
their regatta with a bang notching a first and second to sit them at the
top of the leaderboard at the end of day one. The pair went onto post
some disappointing results in the bigger breeze which saw them fall out
of medal contention.
However, in the one and only race on Saturday, Seabright and
Carpenter once again made the most of the very light airs like they did
on day one by clinching a second place finish to put them back in the
hunt for a podium finish.
A fourth place finish in medal race was enough to catapult the GBR
duo into the bronze medal position, while Austria’s Lara Vadlau and
Jolanta Ogar, silver medallists at the world championships in La
Rochelle in August, took event honours.
In the new Olympic Nacra 17 class, Ben Saxton and Hannah Diamond
entered Sunday’s medal race in pole position, tied on points with the
French pair of Cammas and De Turckheim with Martinez and Tara Pacheco
from Spain in third. World Champions, Billy Besson and Marie Riou were
fourth with just four points separating the top four.
Saxton and Diamond, who won silver at the inaugural World
Championships in July, could however only manage a seventh in final race
seeing them drop out of the medals into fourth and handing event
victory to the winner of the 2011-12 Volvo Ocean Race, Frenchman Franck
Cammas and his crew Sophie De Turckheim.
Pippa Wilson and John Gimson took the medal race win and finished
fifth overall while Lucy Macgregor and Andrew Walsh finished their first
regatta together in seventh.
Nick Thompson, who led on day three of the regatta by an impressive
12 points, was unable to keep the momentum going and finished sixth
overall while RS:X windsurfer Izzy Hamilton closed her championships in
seventh. (from www.rya.org.uk)
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