Australian Sailing Squad’s Ashley Stoddart had a strong first day of Gold fleet racing on Tuesday (24 November) at the 2015 Laser Radial Worlds in Oman.
Winds that reached in excess of 16kts made for exciting racing on the first day of the final series with Ashley Stoddart posting a tenth and sixth place in the two races of the day. This moved her up to 20th overall and into contention to secure country qualification for Australia after a total of eight races and with another four races to go.
“I’m just taking every race one at the time and focussing on the details that I can control. If I find myself getting ahead of time, I'm just pulling myself into the now and going as hard as I can! We have four more races to go and I think being consistent in results and process until the end will be a driving force,” Ashley Stoddart said before the start of racing today.
Twenty countries already qualified for the Laser Radial at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games with another four spots available at these World Championships. Currently Finland, Japan, Turkey and Australia are within reach of these four spots with two days of racing to go.
Today (25 November) is the penultimate day of the event with Finals Races 3 and 4 to take place and with a start time scheduled for 1200 local time (AEDT 19:00).
Anne-Marie Rindom (DEN) leads the gold fleet by a single point from Marit Bouwmeester (NED) and Evi Van Acker (BEL) is two points further back in third.
The 2015 Laser Radial World Championship provides the opportunity for Australia to secure country qualification in the Laser Radial for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. The final chance to qualify the boat class for Australia will be at the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Melbourne mid-December.
Results 2015 Laser Radial World Championship (as of 24 November 2015)
– Ashley Stoddart (QLD/QAS) – ASS: 15, 18, 39, 11, 13, 28, 10, 6 – 20th
– Other Australian, non AST/ASS entries: Krystal Weir (VIC): 34, 34, 44, 35, 33, 41; SILVER FLEET: 15, 6 – 70th
All results: https://sailing.laserinternational.org/regattauploads/Public/Results/OMAN.pdf
– Cora Zillich/AST
