Trio go for gold in Perth (From Dorset Echo)

Trio go for gold in Perth

8:40am Friday 16th December 2011 in News By Echo Reporter

GREAT Britain is guaranteed to leave the Perth World Championships with at least a silver medal from the women’s match racing event.

Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor made a superb semi-final comeback to see them through to today’s final.

The Skandia Team GBR trio were left holding on to their World Championship title by a thread when they went 2-0 down in the first-to-three semi-final against France’s Claire Leroy, Elodie Bertrand and Marie Riou.

But the Poole-based crew held their nerve to win the remaining three consecutive matches in emphatic style against the double world champion Leroy to earn their chance of gold in Fremantle today.

If successful, the 31-year-old Lush – who won world titles crewing with USA’s Sally Barkow (2004, 2005) and with the Macgregor sisters and Mary Rook in 2010 – would equal Dane Dorte Jensen’s record of four women’s World Match Racing Championship titles (1999, 2000, 2001, 2006).

But the British trio will first have to overcome USA’s Anna Tunnicliffe, Debbie Capozzi and Molly Vandemoer in Fremantle after they beat the Russian team skippered by Ekaterina Skudina 3-1 in the second semi-final.

Helm Lucy Macgregor said: “We’re confident, we’re feeling good. It’s going to be hard, there’s no doubt about it, but if we sail how we did yesterday then we’ve got a really good shot.

“It was such a great semi-final – all three of us are really, really pleased right now especially having come back from 2-0 down. “We had a disappointing first race in that we were on top, we were the stronger team and then we let it slip at the end of the race, and then we weren’t really in the game in the second race towards the end, so to come back from 2-0 feels good.”

John Pink and Rick Peacock remain in control of the 49er fleet, with a six-point margin over the second-placed Danish Toft Nielsen brothers, Emil and Simon. With just one race scheduled for the skiff class yesterday, the British pair’s second to the Dane’s first was enough to keep them in pole position after nine races.

A 10th for Dave Evans and Ed Powys sees them remain in the top-10 medal race positions, currently placed sixth overall, while Dylan Fletcher and Alain Sign will look to make the most of the remaining six fleet races over the next two days to boost themselves into the medal race spots. They’re 18th overall.

Australia’s triple world champion Tom Slingsby remains on track for a fourth title, but Weymouth’s Paul Goodison and Nick Thompson occupy the second and third spots on the podium with two more fleet races and the medal race to go.

Olympic champion Goodison finished second behind Slingsby in the first of the day’s two races for the Laser fleet, before sailing his discard in the second race to remain second overall. Thompson won the second of the day’s two races to seize overall third heading into the layday for the class today.

Weymouth’s Nick Dempsey made progress up the leaderboard in the men’s RS:X fleet with 12, seven and 10 for his three races, elevating him from 20th to 15th overall, while Elliot Carney is 11th overall with 27, 11 and 15 for his day.

The windsurfers will return to action again tomorrow.

* For the latest news from the Skandia Team GBR British sailing team at the Perth Worlds visit skandiateamgbr.com or follow the action on Twitter @SkandiaTeamGBR