Gold medal for NZ 470 pair

WELLINGTON: Paul SnowHansen and Dan Willcox have won their first world cup series regatta and first event in Europe, ensuring New Zealand sailors claimed a full set of medals in Genoa.

The pair finished third in the men’s 470 medal race yesterday and, crucially, were two boats ahead of Zangjun Xu and Chao Wang, of China, who started the day in first, to win the event by one point.

That gold medal followed the silver won by Isaac McHardie and William McKenzie and bronze picked up by Peter Burling and Blair Tuke in the 49er on the first day of medal racing.

It has been an encouraging start to the European season by the full New Zealand team, following on from the three medals won at the Princess Sofia regatta in Palma earlier this month.

SnowHansen and Willcox went into the medal race with a threepoint deficit to make up on the Chinese but the points were so close every team in the top10 race had a shot at winning a medal.

The New Zealand pair rounded the first mark in the lead, with the Chinese down the pack, and controlled the race in the 69 knot winds to finish third.

‘‘We have been [training] in New Zealand by ourselves and I have been coming back from injury after breaking my arm so to come to Europe and lay down a good result like this and to do it under pressure and perform in a medal race is awesome for us,‘‘ Willcox said.

‘‘We are really stoked.

‘‘The points were really tight so our goal was to go out there and try to place in the top five and see how we go. It all panned out our way today. It doesn’t always go that way in medal races, so we will take it.’’

It brought to an end an extremely difficult week for all of the sailors in Genoa, with light winds and long delays a feature.

The men’s 470 managed only seven races in total and SnowHansen remarked he had lost count of the number of general recalls and abandoned races. — RNZ

❛ We are really stoked