Career highs for two kiwi campaigns

After two close medal races today at the 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships for men’s 470 and women’s Laser Radial, New Zealand has come out with an eighth and tenth respectively.

For Sara Winther and Paul Snow-Hansen with Jason Saunders, these results are personal bests.

“All of the team is not only delighted with their results today but their progress over the last two years and the amount of work they put into preparing for this.” Jez Fanstone, Olympic Programme Manager for Yachting New Zealand reflected on the recent achievements of these two campaigns.

“They both bounced back from less than ideal Olympic test event results earlier this year. The 470 men and Sara have had career best results at this regatta, these are their highlights.” Jez Continued “Both campaigns know they have areas to be worked on and room for improvement and even better results are yet to come.”

To achieve these overall places here off the shores of Fremantle is no small feat at all, especially when considering the calibre of competitors. The boats that were on the start line this week are the same ones that will be winning the medals at the 2012 Olympic Games.

“Paul and Jason were the youngest and least experienced 470 team in the gold fleet, the top 40 in the world, and so they were boxing outside their weight category.” Hamish Willcox, coach of Paul and Jason is pleased with their outcome at this regatta.

[Yesterday] the men’s 470 pair of Paul and Jason started well and sailed fast upwind, but one wrong decision on the final downwind leg pushed them back to a seventh. Until that point, they had been in the lead five for the whole race.

“They have come a long way in a very short time, they’ve only really been in the 470 for two and a half years and the exciting thing is we don’t know how far they can raise the bar. The result of this performance is that they can realistically aim for a medal in 2012.” Hamish concluded.

Sara Winther also had a great start in the Laser Radial medal race, showing good speed and was leading the third leg. Unfortunately, she was one of the handful of sailors penalized under rule 42 (pumping) and subsequently was out of the race.

“I’m really pleased that Sara has had a career best at this regatta, this is the first time she made the top ten at a World Championship.” Mark Orams is Sara’s lead coach, he continues: “She’s worked really hard over the last 18 months and in particular the thing I’m most proud of is that she’s one of the smallest girls in the fleet, and to make the top ten in a place such as this is something she can be very proud of too.”

The women’s match racing squad of Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen and Susannah Pyatt continued their regatta in good form today with three wins and only one loss.

The first half of the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships are now over, with racing in the Women’s RS:X, Radial, Men’s 470 and Finn class coming to an end today.

[Today], the Men’s RS:X, 49er, Laser and Women’s 470 commence racing, and stormy weather is predicted.

Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships
New Zealand’s Final Standings

470 Men
8th Gold Fleet - Paul Snow-Hansen and Jason Saunders (13, 10, 12, 16, 18, 14)
16th Silver Fleet- James Turner and Matthew Jones (9, 20, 11, 17, 7)
17th Silver Fleet - Luke Stevenson and Sam Bullock (4, 11, 17, 8, 41DNF)
29th Silver Fleet- Gareth Moore and Ben Goodwin (22, 31, 21, 29, 24)
32nd Silver Fleet- Mike Snow-Hansen and Derek Snow (31, 41DNF, 34, 27, 26)

Laser Radial
10th Gold Fleet - Sara Winther (4, 26, 15, 15, 15, 22)
38th Gold Fleet - Miranda Powrie (45, 8, 32, 39, 48)
4th Silver Fleet - Rachel Basevi (1, 8, 52DNS, 6)

Finn
21st Gold Fleet -Dan Slater (23, 7, 20, 19, 18)
28th Gold Fleet-Matt Coutts (26, 30, 18, 37OCS, 21)
10th Silver Fleet- Nik Burfoot (12, 4, 16, 17, 6)
21st Silver Fleet- Brad Douglas (23, 17, 17, 15, 37DNC)
28th Silver Fleet- Rob Coutts (32, 28 25, 19, 20)

RS:X Womens
26th Gold Fleet - Steff Williams (34, 27, 23, 21, 16)
1st Silver Fleet -Natalia Kosinska (1, 2, 9, 2, 1)
7th Silver Fleet- Justina Sellers (4, 17, 3, 7, 5)

Womens Match Racing
Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen, Susannah Pyatt
5 Wins, 3 losses- Stage 2 Round Robin

About this event
The Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships feature the world’s best sailors in all ten Olympic classes from over 80 nations. Over 1200 Sailors will take part, contending for country qualification for the 2012 Olympic Games, and the World Championship titles.

The event officially opened on December 3rd with the start of the Women’s Match Racing and this class will race for the duration of the event, due to the round-robin format of match racing. All other classes will have seven days of racing that conclude with a double point medal race for the top ten.

The first week of racing (December 5 – 11) will feature the Women’s RS:X windsurfer, Women’s single person dinghy class Laser Radial, Men’s double handed class 470 and the Men’s one person dinghy heavy, the Finn class.

The second week of racing (December 12-18) will have all other classes compete, the Men’s RS:X Windsurfer, Men’s single person dinghy class Laser, Women’s double handed class 470, Men’s Skiff 49er.

Visit the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships for results, tracking, live updates, and much more news from on and off the water. www.perth2011.com

A daily TV programme of approximately 25 minutes will also be available online www.sailing.org/tv

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