Jo Aleh and Olivia (Polly) Powrie have won Gold at their Olympic 470 dress rehearsal event, and Paul Snow Hansen with Jason Saunders have achieved bronze.
After a week of tumultuous weather at the Skandia Sail for Gold regatta in Weymouth, the sun finally came out and the wind moderated to a perfect 15 knots for the Lasers medal race. It started to build for the following 470 races, and then a fresh 20-22 knots for the RS:X windsurfer in the early afternoon.
A third place finish in the 470 womens final medal race was enough for the NZL Sailing Teams Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie to keep their advantage over the chasing teams which battled until the bitter end for silver and bronze.
Jo and Polly won this event together in 2011 also, and since then have only topped the podium at one major event; the 470 Spring Cup earlier in 2012. They finished the 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships with bronze, and the 2012 470 class world championships in fourth, and are now in their final stages of preperation for the Olympic Games.
Paul Snow Hansen and Jason Saunders finished their medal race with a solid fourth which was enough to hold onto their third place ranking as they had going into the race. They entered this regatta fresh on the back of a second place finish at the previous ISAF Sailing World Cup regatta, Delta Lloyd and will continue to seek the podium at the next and final ISAF Sailing World Cup regatta in Kiel, Germany later this month. They too will be representing New Zealand at the 2012 Olympic Games, to be sailed in the same waters as this event which they have done so well at.
In the laser fleet, Andy Maloney sailed a great race, pushing regatta winner Tom Slingsby around the course for a second place finish in that race, moving him up to seventh overall. A ninth place finish in the medal round meant NZ's Olympic laser representative Andrew Murdoch slid back to finish the regatta in ninth overall.
The Womens Match Racing crew of Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen an Susannah Pyatt were knocked out of the competition in the quarter final by Claire Leroy of France, finishing the regatta in seventh overall.
In total, the NZL Sailing Team finished as fourth best nation, with six teams finishing inside the top ten.
SAIL FOR GOLD 2012 FINAL STANDINGS
470 (womens)
1st Jo Aleh and Olivia (Polly) Powrie (5,15, 3, 8,8,1, 1, 1, 6)
470 (mens)
3rd Paul Snow Hansen and Jason Saunders (9, 4, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 10, 8)
Laser
7th Andy Maloney (15, 8, 17, 4, 4, 4, 1, 11, 4)
9th Andrew Murdoch (15, 2, 10, 5, 20, 8, 8, 5, 18)
20th Sam Meech (11, 17, 20, 8, 7, 12, 17, 30)
RS:X (mens)
9th JP Tobin (19, 6,14, 9, 9, 3, 4, 4, 20)
Womens Match Racing
7th Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen, Susannah Pyatt
49er
11th Peter Burling and Blair Tuke (3, 10, 14, 10, 7, 8, 2, 7, 4, 9)
13th Marcus Hansen and Josh Porebski (7, 6, 1, 7, 9, 10, 8, 10, 6, 13)
Laser Radial
41st Sara Winther (19, 26, BFD, 19, 10, 12)
RS:X (womens)
17th Natalia Kosinska (9, 10, 14, 17, 25, 44, 23)
23rd Steffanie Williams (25, 31, 21, 16, 15, 25, 20)
Star
11th Hamish Pepper and Jim Turner (8, 7,12, 11, 11, 8)
