News & Features | ISAF | World Sailing | Official Site : WIESER Makes Impressive Start

News

5 November 2005, 04:05 pm

WIESER Makes Impressive Start

Berlin Match Race 2005

Berlin, Germany

It was a light and chilly day on day one of the ISAF Grade 1 Berlin Match Race 2005, with five to six knots of breeze and a rather cold morning for the teams to wake up with a temperature of just nine degrees. First round robin and first group were both won by Marcus WIESER from Germany, who scored four victories out of four.

All in all conditions were extremely difficult on Lake Wannsee for the twelve teams competing.

WIESER's results put him straight through to the second round. United Internet Team Germany aftergaurd Michael HESTBAEK (DEN) won three out of four matches to go through as well.

The youngest team of the competition came all the way from New Zealand and started off in impressive fashion with Kiwi Simon MINOPRIO defeating number seven in the ISAF World Match Race Rankings and last year's runner up Mathieu RICHARD (FRA).

The second group in the first round started sailing this afternoon with the breeze slightly more consistent definitely favouring America's Cup winner and last year's Berlin Match Race winner Jochen SCHUEMANN (GER) who won three out of four races. With such a high level of competition at this year's event winning is never easy with all the skippers having one or two tricks up there sleeves on how the lake and the winds work.

Three-time ISAF Women's Match Racing World Champion Dorte JENSEN (DEN), winner of the qualifying series for this event, showed fine form winning two out of four races. Tomorrow she will be in a fight for a spot in the top six for the following racing which will commence at 1000 local time.

World Sailing TV

Lithuania's Juozas Bernotas came out on top in the Men's RS:X whilst Russia's Stefania Elfutina was triumphant in the Women's RS:X. Both sailors claim the first Abu Dhabi ISAF Sailing World Cup Final spots whilst Jock Calvert (AUS) and Joanna Sterling (AUS) picked up the Oceanic spots for the Emirati finale.

A tight group of five young Papua New Guinean (PNG) Laser sailors are stepping up their 2015 Pacific Games competition program using this week's ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne. PNG is one of 33 countries represented at the important Oceanic event, the largest Olympic sailing regatta in the southern hemisphere.