Victories for Britain and United States in sailing

19 August 2008

QINGDAO – Paul Goodison claimed Great Britain’s third sailing gold of the Beijing Games with victory in the men’s Laser category Tuesday while American Anna Tunnicliffe won the women’s Laser Radial.

Goodison made up for the disappointment of finishing fourth in Athens four years ago by holding on to his lead in the 10th and final race, winning with a total of 63 points.

Slovenia’s Vasilij Zbogar took silver with 71 points while Diego Romero of Italy claimed bronze with 75 points.

Goodison’s success in winds of around 10 knots at Qingdao follows wins for Ben Ainslie in the men’s individual Finn and Sarah Ayton’s crew in the Yngling category.

He thanked his team after the race. "It’s a massive team effort. At one point during the regatta, I was not at the top of the board for a couple of days, but my team reminded me to have faith in myself. I really would like to thank them for helping me pull through."

Tunnicliffe secured victory in the women’s Laser Radial with a total of 37 points from her 10 races.

Gintare Volungeviciute of Lithuania finished in the silver medal position with 42 points while China’s Xu Lijia took bronze with 50 points.

Tunnicliffe said she had a bad start. "It was very hard to focus when my competitors were gaining points on me. But now I am very excited. This is phenomenal. It’s absolutely unbelievable. This is my first Olympics and my first medal. Now I want to eat pizza and ice cream."

Meanwhile, Spain and Italy’s only chance of having the IOC ruling against their protest concerning the Danish victory in the 49er category overturned lies with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The Danes won gold Sunday ahead of Spain’s Iker Martinez and Xabier Fernandez. German brothers Jan-Peter and Hannes Peckolt picked-up bronze and decided not to dispute the result.

CAS secretary general Matthieu Reeb confirmed to Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa Tuesday that so far neither Spain nor Italy had contacted the organization’s ad hoc division, which has been set up in Beijing for the duration of the Games.

"There were no application, no appeals and no applications," said Reeb.

Warrer and Ibsen broke a mast on their way to the start of the final race so competed with a boat they borrowed from the non- competing Croatians.
 
[dpa / Expatica]

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