Greg Wilcox leads OK World Ranking into Melbourne World Championship

Greg Wilcox (NZL) will head into this month's World Championship in Melbourne, Australia as the OK Dinghy World No. 1 for the fourth consecutive release. Another great season from the 2002 World Champion has seen him lead the rankings for the whole of 2014, having reached the top spot this time last year. At 1035 points, he also holds the record for the highest cumulative points in the decade long history of the ranking list.

As well as the European Championships in Steinhude, Germany in July, this release includes the National Championships from Great Britain, Poland, Sweden, Belgium, France and the innovative combined German/Danish Nationals, which was dubbed ‘Crossing borders is OK’.

Wilcox has extended his lead at the top, overtaking Nick Craig’s (GBR) previous points record, and is still benefitting from his performance last season when he won the Interdominion Championships, which were also in Melbourne. Because of that, Jørgen Svendsen (DEN) could only move up two places to second despite winning the Europeans and the 84-boat German/Danish Nationals. Meanwhile the 2012 World Champion André Budzien (GER) moves up five places to third and becomes only the sixth person to pass the elusive 1000 point margin.

Jim Hunt (GBR) is slowly creeping up the list after winning three ranking events this year, including his first British Nationals, as well as the Belgian Nationals. 2009 World Champion Thomas Hansson-Mild (SWE) took the Swedish Nationals while Paweł Pawlaczyk (POL) won the Polish Nationals. Alain Renoux (FRA) won the French Championship.

With the 2014 World Championship coming up in just over three weeks in Melbourne, Australia, the Kiwi and Australian sailors should improve on their positions for the next release, both nations fielding strong teams for the World title battle which starts just after Christmas.

Those with long memories will notice this December 2014 release is the 30th OK Dinghy World Ranking list to be released, and encouragingly for the class it now holds 486 sailors, the highest number ever. It has now been running for 10 years and has become the blueprint for many other classes ranking lists, combining both regatta scores and skill levels at those events to produce a representative list, though in the end it is just for fun.

To celebrate the 10 year anniversary, in the new year we will publish the top 30 highest points scorers so far. Perhaps they could be the top 30 best OK Dinghy sailors of the past 10 years.

Full ranking here. (.xls, 81kb)

– Robert Deaves