6:00pm Friday 27th January 2012
POOLE trio Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor earned a hard-fought berth in the semi-finals of the Women’s Match Racing event at the Miami World Cup and avenged their World Championship final loss to USA’s Anna Tunnicliffe in the process.
The Skandia Team GBR trio came through their three pivotal remaining round-robin matches to earn their place in the quarter-finals of the Rolex Miami OCR, and a re-match against the American trio to whom they lost 4-0 in the Perth Worlds final last month.
In spite of some great starts, the British 2012-bound crew found themselves trailing their perennial rivals 2-0 in the best-of-five quarter-final bout, but dug deep to win the next three matches and set up a semi-final meeting with Finland’s Silja Lehtinen.
Lush explained: “We had a lot on as our group was very tight in the round robin. We won all three of our matches and in the end we had to. “After winning three matches that made us first overall from our group but if we had lost that final match we would not have even made it through.
“They were tight matches but we just managed to get Claire Leroy on the finish line of the final one to go through first.”
Weymouth’s Nick Dempsey also had something to smile about with another two race wins to add to his scorecard in the RS:X men’s windsurfing fleet.
He has now got a 12-point lead over teammate and training partner Elliot Carney in second, while Paul Goodison also reclaimed the top spot of the Laser leaderboard. The Olympic champion, also based in Wey-mouth, picked up 11 and a five on the first day of gold fleet racing, to edge two points ahead of previous series leader, Canada’s David Wright.
Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark remain in touch of the top podium spot in the 470 women’s event, in spite of some starting difficulties. The Weymouth duo were disqualified for a premature start in one race before having to re-cross the startline in another, fearing they had jumped the gun for a second time.
In the end they pulled back to second to remain just one point adrift of the leading Dutch pair, Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout, while Sophie Weguelin and Sophie Ainsworth are in sixth.
Skandia Team GBR sailors are also poised in medal positions in all three Paralympic classes.
Portland’s Alexandra Rickham and Niki Birrell are tied on points at the top of the SKUD leaderboard with Australia’s Daniel Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch, with John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Steve Thomas in second in the Sonar event. In the 2.4mR class – the only one of the Paralympic classes where British selection for 2012 has still to be determined – Portland’s Megan Pascoe is in third overall and Helena Lucas seventh.
Weymouth’s Charlotte Dobson and Alison Young are in fifth and seventh places respectively in the Laser Radial fleet, while Ben Saxton and Richard Mason are in 10th overall in the 470 men’s event. Meanwhile, Olympic representatives Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell have opted to take no further part in the regatta. After being in 14th position at the end of racing on Thursday, the duo have chosen to focus their attentions for the remainder of the week on continuing their preparation for the Games in Weymouth in the summer with team specialists.
* The Rolex Miami OCR – the second leg of the 2011-12 ISAF Sailing World Cup series –comes to a conclusion today.
* For the latest news and information from the Skandia Team GBR British Sailing Team visit skandiateamgbr.com or follow on Twitter @SkandiaTeamGBR
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