Nasty weather brought the Tornado World Championships to a close without the final day’s racing being contested, which leaves Darren Bundock and Glenn Ashby as the new champions. This is Glenn’s second title and his helmsman’s 6th Tornado World title.

Congratulations to the Aussies, who were favourite to win, but who looked far from winning this event after a topsy-turvy day one, when they notched up scores of 14,23. Gradually throughout the week they ground themselves back into contention, taking the lead on what would become the last day of racing.

The other frontrunners in this event will be delighted with their performance. The French team of Yann Guichard and Alexandre Guyader were leading earlier in the week, but will still be pleased to have secured bronze. Perhaps though they will be a little frustrated not to have beaten the Canadians who finished on equal points to the French, but whose two bullets in heats 2 & 4 were enough to give Oskar Johansson & Kevin Stittle the silver medal.

Canada, Austria, New Zealand and the Ukraine earned the final Olympic berths available to the Tornado fleet. The Russian team missed the cut, and will be deeply disappointed as they have showed some real form in some of the lead-up regattas. But it will be a big sigh of relief for the Austrians, Roman Hagara and Hans Peter Steinacher, whose solid but unspectacular 11th place now secures a berth to Qingdao, and an opportunity to add a third Olympic Gold to the ones they won in Sydney and Athens.

For Darren Bundock, winning his sixth world title was a bitter-sweet moment, as he took the opportunity to voice his opposition to the multihull being thrown out of the Games for 2012. As he said, this was perhaps the last Olympic World Championships for the Tornado class. You can listen to a Bundy interview with Sail-World here…

Takapuna was a poor regatta for Skandia Team GBR. Top Brits were Andrew Walsh and Ed Barney in 15th, with Olympic nominees Leigh McMillan and Will Howden suffering catastrophic failure in race four when their port rudder ripped clean off the back of the hull, leaving their boat sinking. The British coach Derek Clark did an all-night repair job on the boat, Leigh and Will clawed their way up the rankings in the latter stages of the regatta, but only as far as 18th overall.

Consistency seems very hard to find in the Tornado, for one reason or another, but Bundock and Ashby keep on slotting in great results, regatta after regatta. Surely the battle for Olympic gold in August will come down to Austria v Australia, but I remember thinking that before Athens, when Australia came home with nothing. It would be one of the biggest upsets of the Olympic Regatta if Bundock and Ashby didn’t win a medal in Qingdao. On current form there’s no sign of that happening.

Full results from the Takapuna Tornado Worlds here…

Photo of Bundock/Ashby courtesy of Will Calver

Question: Who do YOU think will win Olympic Gold in the Tornado this summer? The Aussies, the Austrians, Who? And why?