SAILING NEWS
News 5
AWESOME Ben Ainslie overcame an eight-
point deficit going into the final medal race
to claim a sensational 2008 Finn European
Championship title at Scarlino, Italy on
Saturday May 10.
Clinical Ainslie
With Frenchman Guillaume Florent having
led the Championships since day three,
Skandia Team GBR’s five-time World cham-
pion Ainslie knew he needed at least four
boats to be between himself and Florent at
the end of Saturday’s medal race if he was
going to claim his fourth European title.
clinches fourth
With clinical efficiency the Lymington-
based double Olympic champion sealed a
dramatic final race win meaning the destiny
of the title was unfolding behind him and
with Florent finishing eighth, the gold medal
was Ainslie’s while Croatia’s Ivan Gaspic
European crown
took silver and Florent was forced to settle
for bronze.
A delighted Ainslie said: “I had a game
plan that I had discussed with my coach, Jez
Fanstone, to have a bit of a match race with
EUROPEAN CHAMPION:
Ben Ainslie, Finn, pictured at
Florent in the pre-start and to try to put him
he Princess Sofia Regatta,
off his game plan.
Palma, Mallorca, in March
“I managed to force him into making a
Picture: Richard Langdon
mistake and by halfway down the first beat I
/Skandia Team GBR
could see he wasn’t going so well so I decid-
ed to pull the throttle to try to get as big a
lead as possible and hope he didn’t pull
through.
“This does rank amongst one of my more
satisfying victories; it is always nice to win
when you have been behind going into the
last race. It was really difficult conditions,
the wind was really shifting and the medal
race was delayed by a couple of hours too.
“The Worlds and Olympics are my big
goals for the year but the Europeans are an
important event and it was important to keep
the impetus going in what was my last big
event before Beijing.”
In an incident-packed week, Ainslie, who
took gold the last time he competed at the
Championships in 2005 having also sailed to
glory in 2002 and 2003, got off to a perfect
start taking victory in the only race of day
one.
But having picked up an ultimately dis-
carded 16th and a fourth on a long, hard day
two, and a second and eighth the following
day, Ainslie trailed Florent by seven points at
the halfway mark.
The Brit thought he had pulled himself
even further back into gold medal contention
after posting two bullets in races six and
seven but his Championship hopes took a hit
when, following a protest for a pre-start
infringement involving Canadian
Christopher Cook, Ainslie was disqualified
from race seven.
An eighth for Ainslie and a discarded 20th
for Florent on the penultimate day of racing
left Ainslie knowing exactly what was
required to make it a 2008 World and
European Championships double and once With no wind on the final scheduled day of the chance to edge further up the field, with when a DNF due to a broken centreboard was
again in the face of pressure, he rose to the racing, results remained as of close of busi- only six points separating her from sixth- followed by an OCS disqualification.
challenge to claim the top prize. ness Friday with Britain’s Beijing-bound duo place when the decision to cancel the medal 2008 Finn European Championship
Meanwhile Britain’s windsurfers endured Nick Dempsey and Bryony Shaw finishing in race was taken. (Scarlino, Italy) final results:
mixed fortunes at the RS:X European 20th and eighth place respectively in the Having notched up promising 3-6-3 results 1) Ben Ainslie (GBR)
Championships which also came to a close in men’s and women’s Championships. from the opening three races, Dempsey’s title 2) Ivan Gaspic (CRO)
Brest, France on the Saturday. Shaw will be disappointed not to have had hopes came underdone in races four and five 3) Guillaume Florent (FRA)
ISAF vote sees 2012 events unchanged
THE sailing events for the 2012 the women’s keelboat event. The subject and spoke strongly in sup- and women’s event decisions did
Olympic Games will remain RYA lobbied ISAF and fellow port of the recommendations of not receive the required two-thirds
MEN
unchanged, following a vote by the Member National Authorities, ISAF’s expert Events Committee, majority, so the events will remain
Windsurfer windsurfer
International Sailing Federation believing that the decisions taken which backed the inclusion of mul- as per the original ISAF vote in
One person dinghy
Council at its mid-year meeting in in November were not in the best tihull and women’s high perform- November, as listed right.
Two person dinghy
Qingdao, China. global interests of the sport of sail- ance dinghy events among the 10 With the events unchanged ISAF
Two person high
performance dinghy
A controversial vote by ISAF ing, and succeeded in helping put events permitted for the 2012 appears keen to move the discus-
Keelboat
Council during its annual the issue back on the agenda for Games. sion on, and the spotlight for their
One person dinghy heavy
conference in November 2007 led the world governing body’s May Although an initial simple annual conference in November
to the decision not to include a meetings at the 2008 Olympic sail- majority vote (20 votes to 17) by will now be on which equipment
WOMEN
modern high performance dinghy ing host city. the ISAF Council appeared to sug- will be used for each of these ten
Windsurfer
for women, the expulsion of the At the May meeting, the RYA’s gest they were keen to look again events at the Olympic regatta in
One person dinghy
Two person dinghy
multihull event and the introduc- representative Chris Atkins was at the slate of events for 2012, sub- Weymouth and Portland in four
Keelboat (Match Racing)
tion of a match racing format for the first to address Council on this sequent votes to overturn the men’s years’ time.
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