Great Britain Claims Gold Medals in Santander

Racing in the Men’s and Women’s 470 concluded at the Ciudad de Santander Trophy on Saturday 14 September with British sailors taking gold in both the 470 Men and 470 Women events at the Ciudad de Santander Trophy, the test event for the 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championships.A south westerly breeze coming in at 7-8 knots made its way into Santander Bay for the Medal Races whilst 12 knots of breeze was prevalent on the outside courses.

In the 470 Women, Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark (GBR) trailed Lara Vadlau and Jolanta Ogar (AUT) by three points coming into the Medal Race, with Sophie Weguelin and Eilidh McIntyre (GBR) also in with a shot in third.

The Austrians had the better of the pre-start as the advantage went their way with both British teams needing to do something special or rely on the Austrians faltering. It turned out to be the latter as Clark explained, “The plan was to stick to the Austrians in the pre-start and get to the windward mark and see where we were and what needed to be done. We were actually a bit behind the Austrians at that point in time so we kept our options open for the next upwind and we had an opportunity to get across them and they had a big loss, so that put the boats in-between us that we needed.”

Vadlau and Ogar slipped to fifth which allowed Mills and Clark to take the Medal Race victory and the gold medal. Weguelin and McIntyre came through to finish the medal race in second, which was not enough to move into second overall, so the Austrians took silver and the Brits bronze.

On the victory Mills added, “It’s always nice to win an event, especially an international one. Saskia and I are just finding our rhythm again and it’s taken a little bit longer than we hoped it would take. The last part this week we really feel as if we’ve made steps forward again and getting back to where we were last summer.”

In the 470 Men, Luke Patience and Joe Glanfield had gold wrapped up ahead of the Medal Race and sailed through in fourth to end a strong week for the pair across a number of race courses. Jonas and Niklas Lindgren (FIN) finished fourth in the Medal Race to end on 68 points, with Sweden’s Anton Dahlberg and Fredrik Bergstrom completing the podium.

Luke Patience/Jo Glanfield (GBR) © Thom Touw

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