Outteridgeand Jensen win Gold for Australiain 49er class
The Australian Sailing Team's Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen have won the 49erclass at the Delta Lloyd Regatta in Holland,comfortably defending the points lead they took into Sunday's medal race.
In justtheir first regatta together Outteridge and Jensen showed the fleet that theirlong hours of training in Australiahad paid off quickly getting up to speed and claiming six top three finishes inthe regatta's 12 races.
“We had areally good day out there today in the medal race,” said Outteridge. “We tookin an 11 point lead and the goal today was to maintain a points lead and getthe overall win.”
“We had anice breeze of 12 knots and after a good start cruised around the course andfinished second. Our goal was to come here and learn and hopefully make themedal race but to win I think we're both happy with that.”
For Jensenit was his first ever medal race and he's now looking forward to competing inthe 49er World Championships in Italyin July.
“The medalrace was fast and intense, the course is short which managed to keep all theboats together and Nathan and I didn't make a mistake which was good,” he said.
Fellow49er crew Darren Bundock and Ben Austin finished the regatta in 19thwith Euan McNicol and Sam Newton one place behind in 20th and Clintand Ty Marshall in 38th.
JessicaCrisp flew the Australian Sailing Team flag in the RS:X women's medal race,finishing sixth to move up to fifth overall.
“The startof the regatta wasn't great but I went up each day which was good,” said Crisp.”It's funny coming back to Europe again and competing against everyone, youthink you're going really well but you get here and see there's still a bit ofwork to do before the World Championships in England later this year.”
In thewomen's 470 class Stacey Omay and Chelsea Hall finished the regatta in 13thposition while in the men's class Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page came sixth,Sam Kivell and Will Ryan 21st, Shane Hughes and Felix Paterson 37thand Alexander and Patrick Conway 54th.
TomSlingsby was Australia's leading Laser sailor finishing in 13th,ahead of Ashley Brunning in 30th, Ben Gunther in 47th andTom Burton in 48th.
Australia's Women Match Racing crew ofLucinda Whitty, Amanda Scrivenor and Nina Curtis finished their first ISAFSailing World Cup regatta in sixth and now head to Italy for a strength andconditioning camp with the rest of the Match Racing squad.
