Gold and bronze for GBR on penultimate day in Hyeres
Written by RYA | 25 April 2014
Sonar trio take Hyeres World Cup crown, and Pascoe makes the 2.4mR podium
The British Sonar trio of John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Steve Thomas emerged victorious on the final day of World Cup racing for the Paralympic classes in Hyeres on Friday (25 April), with bronze also going to Megan Pascoe in the 2.4mR event.
The British Sailing Team secured their first medals of this final leg of the ISAF Sailing World Cup series, with the Sonar team adding gold to their World Cup silver from Miami in January while Pascoe secured a third straight podium finish this year.
Robertson, Stodel and Thomas started the day with the ‘maillot jaune’ but had three other boats on their tail with just four points separating the top four crews and two races to sail.
The French crew won both of the races to move them to the top of the leaderboard – but a subsequent protest saw them penalised for a breach of the class rules and gold was instead awarded to the British crew.
“We had an alright day – the French managed to have a pretty good day on the water with two bullets which put them near the front of the fleet. But we came back and there was a protest, and we came out on top,” Stodel explained.
“The French were believed to have broken some Sonar class rules – they were hiking with their ‘derrieres’ over the side of the boat, so unfortunately for them they got penalised 20% in each of today’s races which meant that we won the regatta.
“It’s not the greatest way to win a regatta, but at the same time, class rules are class rules.”
Stodel is buoyed by the trio’s progress this season, but knows they’ll need to keep up the hard work as they build towards the IFDS World Championships in Canada in August where they hope to win a third World Championship title.
“Everything’s a bit new this year – new coach, new set-up, new programme so it’s nice to keep coming out in the chocolates, It’s definitely good for us, and coming into the busy season it’s nice to start with a win going into Medemblik and then finally the World Champs.
“The Sonar fleet’s always really close. There are six or seven boats that can realistically medal at any time, so we’re just going to have to keep pushing hard, putting the hours in and hopefully make that big jump ahead of the fleet. We’re pretty quick downwind and they all know that. Hopefully we can progress that a little bit and keep going up.”
Pascoe went in to the final of 2.4mR racing in a three-way battle for gold with Paralympic gold medallists Heiko Kroeger (GER) and Damien Seguin (FRA).
The Portland-based sailor maintained the consistency she’s showed all week to finish fourth and third in the final two races, but it wasn’t enough to overthrow her rivals, with gold going to Kroeger and silver to Seguin.
But Pascoe is happy with her third straight World Cup podium finish this season.
“It was nice to be in there [with a chance of gold]. Last year I didn’t really have the chance to get into second or first so this year it’s really nice to be in there and fighting, and these are the guys that I’ve got to beat to really be on top of the world,” she explained.
“Today I had to try and put in a top three, or one or two so I didn’t quite manage that but generally I’m very happy. I was a bit on the back foot, because I didn’t quite have enough firsts and that meant that if we’d been on equal points they’d have still beaten me so we had to go out and win the races. In the first race I didn’t quite get off the startline, but I’m happy enough.”
Paralympic Champion Helena Lucas ended her event in fifth. Friday saw the penultimate day of racing for the Olympic classes, and the opportunity to earn berths in the top ten medal races on Saturday (26 April).
The British Sailing Team will have 14 boats featuring in the medal races across all eight of the ten classes they’ve contested this week.
European bronze medallists Sophie Weguelin and Eilidh McIntyre head into the 470 Women’s race in silver medal position, and assured of a podium finish if they sail a clean race, while British crews will have chances in the three-race 49er and 49erFX men’s and women’s skiff events.
Three British crews will contest the 49er medal races, with John Pink and Stuart Bithell currently the leading British crew in sixth overall. Dylan Fletcher and Alain Sign are eighth, with Dave Evans and Ed Powys in tenth.
In the women’s 49erFX event, Charlotte Dobson and Sophie Ainsworth will hope for a solid three races to boost them into the podium spots, with Kate Macgregor and Katrina Best also qualifying for the ten-boat final day.
Nick Thompson heads in to the final day in the Laser class in fifth overall, with a 5,10 on the board from the final day of fleet racing, while in the women’s equivalent Laser Radial event, Podium Potential sailor Hannah Snellgrove enjoyed a great day with two second places seeing her qualify for her first ever World Cup medal race.
Ben Saxton and Hannah Diamond are the leading British boat of three to reach the Nacra 17 finale, with the World Championship silver medallists in fifth and eager to break into the top three tomorrow.
Lucy Macgregor-Andrew Walsh and Pippa Wilson-John Gimson also made the cut in the multihull event, in ninth and tenth respectively.
Luke Patience and Elliot Willis will race in the ten-boat 470 Men’s race, qualifying in ninth after what Patience described as a ‘bare knuckle fight’ of a week, and Nick Dempsey will also feature in the men’s RS:X windsurfing event.
Finals racing in Hyeres starts from 1100 (local) on Saturday 26 April. We’ll bring you all the British Sailing Team news, results and reaction from the event at
www.britishsailingteam.com, on Twitter @BritishSailing or via our
Facebook page.