Britain’s sailors claimed their first medals of the Miami World Cup regatta on Friday, with gold going to the Sonar trio of John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Steve Thomas, and bronze to SKUD duo Alexandra Rickham and Niki Birrell, as the Paralympic classes wrapped up their race series.
Skandia Team GBR has 15 boats across all nine of the Olympic classes they’re competing in heading into Saturday’s final day of this Rolex Miami OCR, with 12 boats currently in medal-winning positions.
After the disappointment of a race disqualification on Thursday lost them their overall lead, Paralympian Sonar crew of Robertson, Stodel and Thomas came out fighting and picked their way through Friday’s three races into the gold medal position with 5,2,3 on the board. They took gold by six points over the French team helmed by Bruno Jourdren, with bronze going to the Dutch World Championship-winning crew helmed by Udo Hessels.
Hannah commented on their victory: “It’s very pleasing, considering we had a stressful night last night with a DSQ added to the board. We went into today wearing red bibs, in bronze position, so we had a lot on but we sailed really well today.
“This is certainly a good start to the season. Everything we’ve been working on over the winter – all the ‘mental toughness’ stuff we’ve been working on has been paying off.
“Our confidence has come back, we’re working really well together and sailing well as a team.”
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Read related features:
Sailing: Brits remain strong at mid-way point in Miami regatta
Sailing: GBR sailors quick out of the blocks on day one in Miami
Sailing: Dee Caffari’s exclusive Barcelona World Race blog
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SKUD World Champions Alexandra Rickham and Niki Birrell also had to pull back through the fleet to secure their bronze, after starting the day in fourth overall. A second and two third places from their three races was enough to see them claim the third podium spot after a testing week.
“I can’t be disappointed with the fact that we’ve actually got a medal,” explained Rickham.
“I’m disappointed because they’re both competitors that we’ve been jousting with for the last year or two and Dan, who won, we’d just beaten in Melbourne so we were hoping to keep that ball rolling.
“But we can’t be too disappointed – it’s a medal, and some people don’t have them!”
Penny Clark and Katrina Hughes bounced back from a black flag disqualification in their first race of the day to maintain their second place overall, six points off the French series leaders, while Sarah Ayton and Saskia Clark also make the medal race cut in ninth place. Hannah Mills and Katie Archer had the best of the day’s results with 1,4,1 but it wasn’t enough to boost them into the missed the medal spots, they missed out by one point.
There was disappointment for Lucy Macgregor, Mary Rook and Kate Macgregor when they lost out 3-0 to USA’s Anna Tunnicliffe in the semi-finals of the women’s match racing event. They’ll fight it out for bronze against another American team, helmed by Sally Barkow, in the play-off’s.
Kim Mogg, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine
