Profitable day for NZ crews
WELLINGTON: New Zealand sailors collected a full set of medals with a gold, silver and bronze at the World Cup regatta in Hyeres, France, yesterday with the prospect of more to come.
Alex Maloney and Molly Meech won gold in the 49erFX and Logan Dunning Beck and Oscar Gunn claimed silver and Josh Porebski and Trent Rippey bronze in the 49er.
Sam Meech is second heading into his medal race in the Laser fleet and Paul SnowHansen and Dan Willcox are third in the men’s 470.
The first day of medal racing could not have worked out much better for the New Zealand sailors. Maloney and Meech won their race having gone into the day second and then watched as the overnight leaders, Ida Marie Baad Nielsen and Marie Thusgaard Olsen from Denmark, were fourth to hand the title to the Olympic silver medallists by one point.
Earlier, Dunning Beck and Gunn won the 49er medal race with Porebski and Rippey close behind in second. It helped immeasurably that four crews were blackflagged after being over the start line.
The gold for Maloney and Meech follows on from their silver at the Princess Sofia regatta in Palma a fortnight ago and the pair are building nicely the sailing world championships in Aarhus in August.
‘‘We went into today trying to win the race and letting everything play out behind us,’’ Maloney said.
‘‘We did all we could today and that was enough so we’re stoked. It’s also good to be able to go into a pressure situation and perform at a reasonable level.’’
There was plenty of drama in the 49er race.
The two New Zealand crews went into the race in fifth (Dunning Beck and Gunn) and sixth (Porebski and Rippey) and thought their only realistic chance was bronze, but that all changed when both the Australians and Belgians were disqualified.
‘‘We had a general recall and went straight into a black flag and four boats happened to be over the line, so they got kicked out at the top mark and that opened it up for us to have a good race,’’ Porebski said..
‘‘We finished second and were third overall. It felt like we made the most of the opportunities we had and we are happy with where we are at and how we are sailing at the moment.’’
Porebski and Rippey were 34th in the second race after a rival lost control and became entangled in the New Zealanders’ wing.
Dunning Beck and Gunn also had their challenges but kept plugging away and were rewarded with silver.
‘‘It’s a great feeling after a tough regatta at Palma [when we missed out on gold fleet] and feels pretty rewarding after the hard yards we’ve been doing on the Waitemata,’’ Dunning Beck said.
‘‘It was great to put up a Kiwi onetwo at the finish as well.’’
Sam Meech is assured of a medal heading into his top10 doublepoints medal race. Tom Saunders just missed out on qualifying for the medal race after he was disqualified from the last race for being over the start line and finished 11th overall. Andrew McKenzie was 20th.
SnowHansen and Willcox are third heading into the men’s 470 medal race. — RNZ