The American 470 Women are coming on strong at the World Championships, with teams lying in 1st and 6th overall. Only trouble is, the ones who have qualified to represent USA at the Olympic Games are the ones lying in 6th, Amanda Clark and Sarah Mergenthaler.
Now this is no disaster, but to have a team at the top of the leaderboard – Erin Maxwell and Isabelle Kinsolving – who aren’t going to the Games, that must be a bitter-sweet moment for the people at US Sailing.
It would be a bitter-sweet moment too for the girls themselves, although they were putting a positive spin on things. “If we win the world titles we’ll be a whole lot less bummed about missing selection for the Olympics,” Kinsolving said. Maxwell added: “We didn’t want to stop sailing after such a downer, so we picked ourselves up and want to finish on a more positive note.”
The Americans (shown left of picture above, taken in Cascais last year) have relegated defending World Champions, Marcelien de Koning and Lobke Berkhout, to 2nd overall after the Dutch team had a mediocre day in the light winds which returned to Port Philip Bay. This regatta really is turning out to be very Qingdaoish, a much better indicator of light-airs form than most people had expected. Which is good news for last year’s Olympic Test Regatta winners, Elise Rechichi and Tessa Parkinson. This Aussie team worked the light winds well yesterday, scoring a 5,2 to rocket them up to 3rd overall, just 3 points off the Dutch.
If Black Rock is this month’s Qingdao, then this is a bit concerning for Aussie reigning World Champions in the Men’s division, Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page, who are struggling to find consistency in the light winds. After a 20th place in the first race, they made amends with their first heat win of the series, moving them up to 7th overall.
“I’m not entirely sure we deserve to be seventh,” Page said. “Our preparation’s been great and I can’t say we’ve been sailing badly but we just can’t seem to take a trick,” he added. “We got off to a good start in the first race and were a bit slow up the first work but then we got headed by a couple of boats at the mark which cost us about 15 boats.”
Portugal’s Alvaro Marinho and Miguel Nunes are the new leaders in the Men’s division, but just seven points separate the top five in the fleet, with three heats and a Medal Race still to come.
Posted in 470 | Tags: Amanda Clark, Erin Maxwell, Isabelle Kinsolving, Sarah Mergenthaler
