GB trio forced to settle for silver (From Dorset Echo)

GB trio forced to settle for silver

8:30am Saturday 17th December 2011 in News By Echo Reporter

HAILED the ‘comeback queens’ after their dramatic semi-final turnaround on Thursday, Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgre-gor could not quite find the same magic in the women’s match racing final at the Perth World Championship.

The British trio had to settle for silver at the hands of USA’s Anna Tunnicliffe, Debbie Capozzi and Molly Vandemoer, with a 4-0 scoreline that belies the closeness of the racing out on Fremantle’s Inner Harbour course.

The Poole trio – the defending world champions and seemingly crowd favourites – were put on the back foot in the opening race when they picked up two penalties, allowing Tunnicliffe to take an early lead, and were handed a further penalty in the pre-start of the second race to leave them chasing the world number one-ranked crew.

The Skandia Team GBR threesome put up a determined fight, even when faced with a 3-0 deficit, but the tough USA team edged the win in each match to be crowned world champions.

“I think we have pretty mixed emotions right now,” said 25-year-old helm Lucy, whose team had to come through an epic 43 matches over 14 days in Fremantle – the most of any crew – to claim their championship silver.

“We were really pleased with the fight that went on out on the water and there was some really close racing.

“We made some big mistakes getting some penalties and without them we’d have been looking very strong and the score-line could have looked quite different.”

The match racing trio’s silver takes Skandia Team GBR’s medal tally at these World Championships to four – one gold, two silver and one bronze – with two days of competition still to go.

John Pink and Rick Peacock are still in the overall lead in the 49er skiff class, although their points cushion was narrowed to just two ahead of Australia’s Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen after the third of three races yesterday.

The 2009 silver medallists saw a solid first two races of four and nine before a slight delay in proceedings and a change of course ahead of the third race in which they placed 15th.

Dave Evans and Ed Powys remain in the medal race positions, in seventh overall, with three more fleet races scheduled for today before the final double points-scoring medal race tomorrow.

Weymouth’s Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark are the leading British crew in the 470 women’s event after two races on a testing centre course. They posted a steady 12 and eight to see them into fifth overall and raring to “step up a gear today”, while Penny Clark and Katrina Hughes had a solid first race before penalty turns in the second for a port-starboard infringement saw them finish in 30th and end the day in seventh overall.

The Laser and RS:X men’s classes return to action for their final day of fleet racing today and tomorrow’s finals.

Weymouth’s Paul Goodison and Nick Thompson, currently in second and third overall in the Laser class, will be hoping to reel in the Australia world champion and series leader Tom Slingsby ahead of Sunday’s medal race, while Nick Dempsey, also from the resort, will need some low scores tomorrow if he’s to make the 10-boat finale for the windsurfers tomorrow.

He’s in 15th overall, with development squad sailor Elliot Carney in 11th.

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