In Star class, Brazil’s two-time Olympic medalists and that country’s most successful and celebrated sailors, Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada, won the gold after finishing third in today’s medal race. “When you go into the medal race, many guys can win,” said Scheidt. “You cannot focus only on one guy, so our strategy was to try to make a clean start, especially with speed, because the wind was very light; that was more important than getting to the favored end.”

Sneaking into the top-three overall, where they had not been all week, was France’s Xavier Rohart/Pierre Alexis Ponso, who finished second today. The performance secured them the silver medal with just the edge they needed over the bronze medalists Eivind Melleby/ Petter Moerland Pedersen (NOR), who finished sixth today and also had been in third at racing’s end yesterday. Losing what seemed to be a sure podium position going into today was Fredrik Loof/Max Salminen’s (SWE), who finished eighth in the medal race and fell to fourth overall from second yesterday, only one point out of medal reach.

“The wind made a big shift to the left on the first beat,” said Scheidt, “but we weren’t there. We were trying to cover the Swedish, and then we were able to tack on them two times and bounce them to the right. Then the left paid big, and we managed to round sixth at the top mark. From then on our race was a little more comfortable, but we were still afraid of the French who were doing really well. We climbed to fourth, and they were in third; in the end, we nailed a third and the French got second.”

Scheidt added that all of the top four teams plus more here will be competing at the Olympics, “and they will be stronger, so I think it was very nice for us to win the first regatta of the year. It gives us confidence but we know we have a long way to go until Weymouth.”

For Paul Goodison (GBR) and Bruno Fontes (BRA), it was all equal (point scores of 20 each) going into the Laser race today, so it was literally who-beat-whom that would determine gold.

“I decided to engage a little before the start but nothing too much,” said Goodison, the 2008 Laser Olympic Gold Medalist and 2009 World Champion, who finished second to Fontes’s fifth. “I won the right hand side of my competition and just pulled away from there. Once I was in front, it was just about extending the lead.” With Fontes not able to sail away with anything less than a silver medal, it was David Wright’s (CAN) focus to win the bronze, which he did by finishing fourth.

“All week the racing has been glamour–really good breeze, but today was quite tricky with it being much lighter and quite patchy,” said Goodison. “ Out of the first six races I won four of them, so I was really happy with that, and then going into the gold fleet (mid-week ), it was all about consolidating that lead.”

Favored going into today’s 49er race, Nico Karth/Nikolaus Resch (AUT) finished second to secure the gold, while Erik Storck/Trevor Moore (USA) won the race to maintain their second-place position from yesterday and take home silver.

“This week has been perfect for us,” said Karth, who with Resch is a two-time Olympian and has qualified his country for the Olympics but has yet to be named to the Olympic Team. “We were struggling in the first few races, but by the end of the week we made it hard for them (Storck/Moore) to catch up.” (The Austrians had a 19-point lead going into the medal race.) Winning the bronze was Lauri Lehtinen/Kalle Bask (FIN), who had been in third overall yesterday.

Lijia Xu, China’s Laser Radial Olympic Bronze Medalist from 2008 and a 2006 World Champion, won the gold here after finishing eighth today to Marit Bouwmeester’s (NED) ninth, which was good for silver.

“It was very competitive,” said Xu, who positioned herself as close as possible to Bouwmeester today in order to control her. “We have the medalists from the 2011 World Championships in Perth and many other good sailors from all around the world.” The Perth champions are Bouwmeester, Belgium’s Evi Van Acker, and the USA’s Paige Railey, and while Van Acker finished fourth today to take the bronze medal, Railey won the race. “Weymouth (where the Olympic Sailing Regatta will take place) could be light to medium breeze, so it is good practice,” added Xu.

In 470 Men’s, Australia’s Mathew Belcher/Malcolm Page held the lead the entire week, and in today’s medal race finished tenth to clinch the gold. Ahead of them in eighth place were Sven Coster/Kalle Coster (NED), who took the silver, with fourth-place finishers Panagoitis Kampouridis/Efstathios (GRE) taking the bronze.

To secure the gold in 470 Women’s, Lisa Westerhof/Lobke Berkhout (NED), who are two-time World Champions and heading to the Olympic Games, had to make top-six in today’s medal race and ended up taking third. “It was very tricky and very light,” said Westerhof, adding that waves from spectator boats sometimes stopped them in their tracks. After day two, Westerhof/Berkhout had jumped ahead of Great Britain’s Hannah Mills and Saskia Clarke, who took the silver today after finishing fourth. “The British spilled some points on one day and we kept sailing very strong,” said Westerhof. The bronze was won by Sophie Weguelin/Sophie Ainsworth (GBR) after they won today’s race.

Lucy Macgregor/Annie Lush/ Kate Macgregor (GBR) won the gold medal in Women’s Match Racing with a 3-1 win over Olivia Price/Nina Curtis/Lucinda Whitty (AUS), who had to settle for silver after their fates were sealed in the final match of their first-to-three flight. The race looked to be going the Aussies’ way when GBR lagged as much as 12 boat lengths behind during the first lap of the twice-around course. Their momentum was halted, however, on the second upwind leg when they hit some major waves and tried to tack with too little speed while GBR closed the gap. Back in the game, GBR sailed to a lead that exchanged mouse for cat, and with plenty of further batting around, proved that match racing is one of the most exciting Olympic disciplines to watch.

Taking bronze in the Petit Finals after battling with Australia’s Olivia Price/Nina Curtis/Lucinda Whitty was the USA’s Sally Barkow (Nashotah, Wis.)/Elizabeth Kratzig-Burnham (Miami, Fla.)/Alana O’Reilly (Charleston, S.C.).

Demita Vega De Lille (MEX) considers her gold medal here in RS:X Women’s another notch in her harness she wears in the pursuit of her Olympic dreams.“This event will not give me any points for the Olympic Games, but it is very good for me for the training,” said Vega De Lille, who has not yet made her country’s Olympic Team. “I am very happy to be here, and I hope to qualify in Spain at the World Championships.”

Taking the silver was Farrah Hall (USA), who has won the right among fellow teammates to go to the Olympic Games but has yet to qualify her country, and winning bronze was Dominique Vallee (CAN).

Nick Dempsey (GBR), who will represent his country at the Olympic Games, was rehearsing all week for his victory today in the RS:X Men’s windsurfing race. In fact, this was his 11th straight win in as many races here. Fellow teammate Elliot Carney clinched the silver with 31 overall points to Dempsey’s 11, while Sebastian Wang-Hansen (NOR) took the bronze with 38 points overall.

If anyone else’s victory for a gold medal here could be called decisive it would have to be Zach Railey’s (Clearwater, Fla., USA) in the 25-boat Finn class. With a 12-point lead over Denmark’s Jonas Hogh Christensen going into today and nothing worse than a third-place finish in his 10-race lead-up series, Railey won today’s race for good measure, leaving Hogh Christensen to take fourth for silver. With 18 points separating those two in the final standings, Canada’s Greg Douglas finished third today to add six points to his score line (another 12 points behind Hogh Christensen) and post a final 45 points for bronze.

“Miami is where I went to college and it all started here, training full time and wanting to make the push towards the Olympic Games,” said Railey, who graduated in 2006 and won an Olympic Silver Medal at the 2008 Games, “and now I’m going back to the Games in 2012, and to have my first World Cup victory here in Miami makes it sweeter.”

About today’s race, Railey said, “I definitely knew that there was going to be some pressure from the Danish sailor. We were locked in a pretty tight match race there before the start, but I was able to break away from him and sail my own race from there. The goal going in was to capitalize on my performance this week and go out in a good dominating fashion.”

US Sailing’s Golden Torch Award
US Sailing’s Golden Torch Trophy, awarded to the U.S. sailor with the best overall performance at US Sailing’s Rolex Miami OCR, this year went to Finn Gold Medalist Zach Railey (Clearwater, Fla.). The torch, from the 1980 Moscow Olympics, was presented by the Russian Olympic Committee to Andrew Kostanecki – United States Olympic Sailing Committee from 1985 to 1988. Mr. Kostanecki gave the torch to US Sailing as an award for aspiring Olympians and Paralympians. This is the first time that Railey has received this award.

US Sailing’s Rolex Miami OCR, established in 1990, is open to boats competing in events chosen for the Olympic and Paralympic Sailing Competitions. The event is significant as the second of seven stops on ISAF’s Sailing World Cup circuit and is the only of those to be hosted in North America. The USA was represented with the largest contingent of teams (135), followed by Canada (85), Sweden and The Netherlands (25 each), Great Britain (22), then Argentina and Norway (both 14). Fifteen nations were represented in Saturday night’s Medal Ceremony. Taking away the most medals was Great Britain with eight (3 golds, 4 silvers, 1 bronze), followed by the USA and The Netherlands with five each (respectively, 3 silvers, 2 bronze, and 2 golds, 2 silvers, one bronze). Canada claimed four medals, while Norway and Australia each came away with three; Brazil and France with two, and Austria, Finland, China, Belgium, Greece, Denmark and Mexico with one apiece.

Regatta Headquarters are located at the US Sailing Center Miami, an official Olympic training center, in the Coconut Grove section of Miami, Fla. Event organizers have partnered with the city of Miami to provide world-class venues for competition. Additional hosts for the event include Coral Reef Yacht Club, Key Biscayne Yacht Club, Coconut Grove Sailing Club, Miami Rowing Club and Shake-a-Leg Miami. These sailing organizations host classes onshore, as well as help run the on-the-water racing. The Coral Reef Yacht Club also hosts the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

In addition to title sponsor Rolex Watch U.S.A., the 2012 Rolex Miami OCR is also sponsored by AlphaGraphics, Sperry Top-Sider, Harken McLube, Kattack, Gowrie-Chubb, Trinity Yachts and the University of Miami Hospital.

A complete roster of competitors can be viewed at the event website http://rmocr.ussailing.org, where video highlights produced by T2p.tv and presented by Rolex are available on-demand and full regatta results, photos and news updates are posted. Fans also followed the event on Facebook/RMOCR and Twitter/RMOCR.

(end)

CONTACT:
Barby MacGowan, Media Pro Int’l for Rolex Watch U.S.A.
barby.macgowan@mediapronewport.com
P: +1 401-849-0220

Women’s Match Racing / Course E – 9:00 am
Laser Radial / Course B – 11:00 am
RS:X Men / Course A – 11:00 am
RS:X Women / Course A – 11:40 am
Laser / Course B – 11:40 am
Finn / Course B – 12:20 pm
49er / Course A – 12:20 pm
Star / Course A – 1:00 pm
470 Women / Course B – 1:00 pm
470 Men / Course B – 1:40 pm

Daniel Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch (AUS)

MIAMI, FLA. (January 27, 2012) – Today was critical for sailors in the three Paralympic classes (Skud-18, Sonar and 2.4mR) at US Sailing’s Rolex Miami OCR, where 529 sailors from 41 countries are competing.  While their Olympic counterparts in ten additional classes were sailing to make the top-ten cut for a single medal race scheduled for tomorrow, the Paralympic sailors were topping off five days of racing on Biscayne Bay with two final fleet races to determine who takes home medals.  Many of the sailors, including those from the U.S., also were battling for a berth on their respective country’s teams for the 2012 Paralympic Games in Weymouth, England, this summer.

France’s Damien Seguin, the 2.4mR class’s early leader, finished 3-1 today to post 17 points overall and win a gold medal that he can now hang next to his Paralympic Gold from Athens and his Silver from Qingdao.  Seguin’s performance increased his lead over Canada’s Silver Medalist Paul Tingley (with a 2-7 today) to a staggering 25 points–quite an accomplishment in a fleet of 25 boats.

“Damien is very good and very consistent and has been at this a long time,” said the USA’s Mark LeBlanc (New Orleans, La.), whose finish of eighth overall here (over the 11^th posted by fellow US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics member John Ruf) will finally give him his shot at a Paralympic medal. “Hopefully we can train together.”

LeBlanc explained that he was in the Paralympic Trials in 2007 and tied for first but, losing out to tie-breaker rules, did not go to the Games, which was  heart breaking.  “To be honest, looking back now to where I am versus then I can say I wasn’t ready then,” said LeBlanc.  “I had no idea what was going on and was just going out and sailing, but this time around I’m well prepared and ready to go to the Paralympics.”

The Netherlands’ Barend Kol snatched bronze with a 4-4 today for 48 points, displacing Great Britain’s Megan Pascoe, who was in that position going into today.  (Pascoe fell to fourth.)

In Skud-18s, Daniel Fitzgibbon/Liesl Tesch (AUS) won the gold medal after finishing 4-1 today and edging out by only one point silver medalists Alexandra Rickham/Niki Birrell (GBR), who turned in a 3-3.  The two teams had been tied on points going into today, with the USA’s Jennifer French/Jean-Paul Creignou trailing in third, a position they maintained today for bronze (as well as a spot on the USA’s Paralympic team).

“We had a terrible first day,” said Fitzgibbon, whose team won here last year and was named to represent his country at the Paralympics after it finished third place in this year’s World Championship.  “It has been a week of us just chipping away, coming back, coming back, until we were third, second and then last night we got up to first, and today we were able to win in the last race.  We were in second going into the final race and we had to beat the British team (Alexandra Rickham/Niki Birrell) to win the regatta. I’m really happy about how it worked out.”

Yesterday in Sonars, Udo Hessels/ Marcel van de Veen/ Mischa Rossen (NED) were one point out of first, but today the team secured a gold medal with a 1-2 for a five-point margin over silver medalists John Robertson/ Hannah Stodel/ Steve Thomas (GBR).  Taking the bronze was Aleksander Wang-Hansen/ Marie Solberg/Per Eugen Kristiansen (NOR).

Another battle for a U.S. berth in that class made for some of the best sailing of the day when Paul Callahan (Cape Coral, Fla./Newport, R.I.), sailing with crew Tom Brown (Castine, Me.) and Bradley Johnson (Pompano Beach, Fla.), had to finish within two boats of Rick Doerr (Clifton, N.J.)/Brad Kendell (Tampa, Fla.)/Hugh Freund (S. Freeport, Maine) in the last race of the day.  A bad start was looking to thwart those chances, and, trailing far behind at the first top mark, Callahan used the next two laps of the course to make up time and finish with a seventh to Doerr’s eighth.

“After our three years as a team we were confident we could win (the Paralympic berth),” said Callahan, who is a 2000 Paralympian. “Today the racing was rugged on Biscayne Bay, but I’m feeling like I’m ready to continue on and win a gold medal in Weymouth.”

In Star class, the neck-and-neck race between Brazil’s Robert Scheidt/Bruno Prada and Sweden’s Fredrik Loof/Max Salminen was further complicated by Norway’s Eivind Melleby/ Petter Moerland Pedersen when that team won the first of two races today.  With the Brazilians taking fourth and the Swedes taking third, the performance tied Melleby/Pedersen with Scheidt/Prada going into the second race, while Loof/Salminen had a one-point edge on their closest competitors.  The nod went to Scheidt/Prada in the end, however, when the Brazilians, who are the current World champions, won the second race, putting Loof/Salminen two points behind them in fourth (with 33 points) and Melleby/Pedersen in third (38 points).

Melleby had said earlier in the week that the top ten here are so good that getting to the medal race would be tough. “We have here nine of the top 15 teams from Perth (where the most recent World Championships were held), so the fleet is quite strong.”  With five of those now off the final-race roster, Melleby’s goal tomorrow will be to power through for a podium position.

In Women’s Match Racing, Australia’s Olivia Price/Nina Curtis/Lucinda Whitty were the first to advance to tomorrow’s finals after they defeated Sally Barkow (Nashotah, Wis.)/Elizabeth Kratzig-Burnham (Miami, Fla.)/Alana O’Reilly (Charleston, S.C.) 3–1 in today’s first semifinals match. Then in the second match, Lucy Macgregor/Annie Lush/ Kate Macgregor (GBR), like they did yesterday, became entangled in a do-or-die match to advance to the finals.  They prevailed against Silja Lehtinen/Silja Kanerva/Mikaela Wulff (FIN) winning the fifth race in the first-to-three flight.

Tomorrow the Macgregor team will face the young Australian team in the finals while the Finns will tip off with USA in the Petit Finals for bronze.

Yesterday’s upset by GBR’s Paul Goodison was usurped by Brazilian Bruno Fontes’s today for a spot at the top of the scoreboard in Laser class.  Fontes won both races today and added the victories to three others in his ten-race series.  Goodison’s 2-3 today was good enough to show tied points with Fontes but not enough to keep him from falling to second behind him due to tie-breaker rules, which favor the most first-place finishes.  (Goodison has four total.)

The only sailor here with a perfect score, Nick Dempsey (GBR) has won nine of his ten races on the RS:X windsurfing course and discarded an OCS (“on the course side” at the start) in race three as his worst finish.  “Everything is going pretty well,” said Dempsey, who has already qualified for the Olympic Games.  “I’m really here for a training regatta, really trying to make the most of the light winds.”

Other sailors maintaining their leads from yesterday and seemingly favored for tomorrow’s top-ten medal races were Nico Karth/Nikolaus Resch (AUT) in 49ers, Lijia Xu (CHN) in Laser Radial, Mathew Belcher/Malcolm Page (AUS) in 470 Men,Lisa Westerhof/Lobke Berkhout (NED) in 470 Women, Zach Railey (USA) in Finn, Nick Dempsey (GBR) in  RS:X Men andDemita Vega De Lille (MEX)  in RS:X Women
US Sailing’s Rolex Miami OCR, established in 1990, is open to boats competing in events chosen for the Olympic and Paralympic Sailing Competitions. The 10 Olympic classes for 2012 are: Laser Radial (women), Laser (men), Finn (men), Men’s RS:X, Women’s RS:X, 49er (men), Men’s 470, Women’s 470, Star (men) and Elliott 6m (women). The three Paralympic classes are: 2.4mR (open), SKUD (mixed) and Sonar (mixed).

For fleet racing in the Olympic classes, the Rolex Miami OCR consists of a five-day opening series (Monday – Friday) and a double-point medal race (Saturday). The top 10 finishers in the opening series of each class will advance to the medal race. For match racing (Elliott 6m), which makes its debut in the 2012 Olympic Games, the regatta will consist of an opening series, a knockout series, and a sail-off for boats not advancing to the knockout series.  Competitors in the Paralympic classes have five days of fleet racing (Monday-Friday) and no medal race.

Medals will be awarded to the top three boats in each Olympic and Paralympic class on Saturday, January 28.

Regatta Headquarters are located at the US Sailing Center Miami, an official Olympic training center, in the Coconut Grove section of Miami, Fla. Event organizers have partnered with the city of Miami to provide world-class venues for competition. Additional hosts for the event include Coral Reef Yacht Club, Key Biscayne Yacht Club, Coconut Grove Sailing Club, Miami Rowing Club and Shake-a-Leg Miami. These sailing organizations host classes onshore, as well as help run the on-the-water racing. The Coral Reef Yacht Club also hosts the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

In addition to title sponsor Rolex Watch U.S.A., the 2012 Rolex Miami OCR is also sponsored by AlphaGraphics, Sperry Top-Sider, Harken McLube, Kattack, Gowrie-Chubb, Trinity Yachts and the University of Miami Hospital.

A complete roster of competitors can be viewed at the event website http://rmocr.ussailing.org, where real-time racecourse blogging, commentary and fan interaction, regatta results, photos and news updates have been integrated into a live coverage platform. Video highlights produced by T2p.tv and presented by Rolex are available on-demand on the event website. Kattack will be tracking all medal races tomorrow. Fans can also follow the event on Facebook/RMOCR and Twitter/RMOCR.

(end)

Sailing conditions may not be as favorable today in comparison to what we have had in Biscayne Bay for most of the week. Moderate winds at 9 to 12 knots by mid morning and early this afternoon. Breeze is expected to lighten later this afternoon from 6 to 10 knots. Mostly sunny skies early with larger clouds rolling in this afternoon and perhaps showers in the area. There are chances of a thunderstorm onshore in the afternoon.

Course A:
RS:X Men – 11:00
RS:X Women -11:10
49er – 13:00

Course B:
2.4 mR – 10:30
Sonar – 13:00
SKUD-18 – 13:10

Course C:
470 Men – 13:30
470W – 13:45
Laser Men (Yellow/Gold) – 11:30
Laser Men (Blue/Silver) – 10:45
Laser Radial – 11:00

Course D:
Star – 11:00
Finn – 12:30

Course E:
Women’s Match Racing – 10:00

“It’s looking pretty exciting,” said Brazil’s Star sailor Robert Scheidt, who with crew Bruno Prada has perhaps one of the most impressive sailing records here.  (Together, they are two-time Olympic medalists and just off their second straight title win at the Star World Championships).  “Some of the guys who have already got a spot in the Olympics are here and they are really sailing well.”

No one has been proving that theory better than Sweden’s Fredrik Loof/Max Salminen who yesterday trailed Scheidt/Prada by two points and today tied on points with the Brazilians after finishing 6-2 to their 3-7.  With both teams posting 26 points, Norway’s Eivind Melleby/ Petter Moerland Pedersen are nipping at their heels with only 29 points.

“Today we didn’t have a great day,” added Scheidt.  “The first race was good because we were coming from behind, but the second race we wanted to start at the boat and got jammed there, so we had to start behind the pack and play catch-up the whole race. We managed to hold our lead, but there are still two races to go until the medal race. “

As will happen at the Olympics, only the top-ten boats after tomorrow’s racing will be allowed to progress to Saturday’s single medal race, which will determine gold, silver and bronze medals.
�
“We just have to make one good race to get into the top ten, but our goal is to win the medal, so tomorrow is an important day,” Scheidt said, explaining that cumulative points are carried into the medal round, which is counted twice in the final scoring, so there is no room for slacking off.  “You cannot over think it (the medal race). You have to keep things simple and not tack too much, and try to be consistent and close to your rivals.  Freddy is a very consistent guy; he’s always at the top, and Eivind did really well at the Worlds in Perth, and now he’s catching up again. He’s sailing really fast.”

As for Loof, he feels his team has been fighting for every point.  “It has been hard work,” he said.  “It’s tricky out there, and both sides are favored. When you try to get into the oscillation it doesn’t work either. The French today had the two bullets, and they came from the left almost all the time and had big gains.  Tomorrow we’re just going to keep working; we have a few things that we can improve, especially the downwind, and if we get that right, I think we’ll have a little bullet ourselves.”

For the New Zealand team of Hamish Pepper and Jim Turner, it isn’t easy being green.  Their borrowed green hull (while their new boat gets built) is a standout—especially at black-flagged starts–in a sea of 30 white Star boats, but they are holding up well despite that and the fact that “green” is also what Turner calls himself. “It’s a different challenge for sure,” said Turner, who has never sailed a Star before and is best known for his campaign contributions to two America’s Cups and a slew of TP52 races.  “Everyone is really on top of their game here because of the Olympics.”  His skipper Pepper added that there are no other countrymen vying with them for a Star berth at the Olympics.   “It’s all learning and trying to first qualify our country in France (at Hyeres) and then proving to our country’s selectors that we are worthy of going.”

For the Paralympic sailors here, tomorrow will be the final day of racing (two races each scheduled for Skud-18, Sonar and 2.4mR classes) and determine who takes home medals.  (This is the same format that will be followed at their Games.)

France’s Damien Seguin, who has been leading the 2.4mRs since Tuesday, won today’s first race and finished eighth in the second, which he is using as his worst-finish discard.  As such, he has a whopping 20-point lead over Canada’s Paul Tingley.

“It was really difficult because I was in the middle of the fleet, so the guys on the right or the left were going ahead of me,” said Seguin.  “The competition is really high because the Paralympic Games are in sixth months, and we had the World Championship two weeks ago in Port Charlotte (Fla.).  I love this regatta, since it is the first regatta of the year for me, and it’s a sunny and windy place”

In Skud-18s, Daniel Fitzgibbon/Liesl Tesch (AUS) are tied in point score with Alexandra Rickham/Niki Birrell (GBR) for first and second on the scoreboard, while in Sonars, Jourden Bruno/ Vimont Vicary Nicolas/ Flageul Eric (FRA) are only one point ahead of Udo Hessels/ Marcel van de Veen/ Mischa Rossen (NED)

In Women’s Match Racing, Sally Barkow (Nashotah, Wis.), who sails with Elizabeth Kratzig-Burnham (Miami, Fla.) and Alana O’Reilly (Charleston, S.C.), was the first to advance to the semifinals today after 24 teams, split into Groups A and B, completed their single elimination quarterfinal rounds. (Group B had to finished their second of two round-robin series this morning to determine the top-four teams that would progress to today’s semifinals with the top four from Group A, who were named yesterday.) 

Barkow and crew, who had only lost one match in the 11-race series that led up to today, lost no matches in their first-to-three-race quarterfinals flight against Tamara Echegoyen/Angela Pumariega/Sofia Toro (ESP).  Similarly, no matches were lost by Australia’s Olivia Price/Nina Curtis/Lucinda Whitty and Finland’s Silja Lehtinen/Silja Kanerva/Mikaela Wulff, and with all three teams secured with berths in tomorrow’s four-team semifinals, all attention was turned to the last flight of the day between the USA’s Anna Tunnicliffe (Plantation, Fla.)/Molly O’Bryan Vandemoer (Stanford, Calif.)/Debbie Capozzi (Bayport, N.Y.) and Great Britain’s Lucy Macgregor/Annie Lush/Kate Macgregor.  There could not have been a better match made in heaven, since both teams were medalists (USA gold, GBR silver) at the recent ISAF Worlds in Perth.

This time, it was Macgregor’s team that toppled Tunnicliffe’s, but only after the former trailed 2-1, then “stayed alive” by winning the third match for a tied score of 2-2, and then won the final race that was needed to decide who advanced.

“We didn’t start out with a brilliant regatta,” said Lush after racing today.  “We haven’t been winning everything straight out, and we’ve also made a lot of mistakes, but it has been good to learn from, and it’s really nice to get through the quarter-finals.  It is always a massive sign of relief because it’s such a big cut, and everyone racing in the quarters is good.  Anna Tunnicliffe is the World Champion, and we met her in the quarters.  It’s a really tough stage and a relief to get through it. “

An upset also occurred in the Laser class when Great Britain’s Paul Goodison finally ousted Canadian David Wright from the coveted spot at the top of the scoreboard.  Each had both a good and a bad race today, the latter of which served as their allowed discard in a series that is eight races strong.  Goodison, in similar fashion to many here, is the current Olympic Gold medalist and a past World, European and British Champion.

US Sailing’s Rolex Miami OCR, established in 1990, is open to boats competing in events chosen for the Olympic and Paralympic Sailing Competitions. The 10 Olympic classes for 2012 are: Laser Radial (women), Laser (men), Finn (men), Men’s RS:X, Women’s RS:X, 49er (men), Men’s 470, Women’s 470, Star (men) and Elliot 6m (women). The three Paralympic classes are: 2.4mR (open), SKUD (mixed) and Sonar (mixed).

For fleet racing in the Olympic classes, the Rolex Miami OCR consists of a five-day opening series (Monday – Friday) and a double-point medal race (Saturday). The top 10 finishers in the opening series of each class will advance to the medal race. For match racing (Elliott 6m), which makes its debut in the 2012 Olympic Games, the regatta will consist of an opening series, a knockout series, and a sail-off for boats not advancing to the knockout series.  Competitors in the Paralympic classes have five days of fleet racing (Monday-Friday) and no medal race.

Medals will be awarded to the top three boats in each Olympic and Paralympic class on Saturday, January 28.

Regatta Headquarters are located at the US Sailing Center Miami, an official Olympic training center, in the Coconut Grove section of Miami, Fla. Event organizers have partnered with the city of Miami to provide world-class venues for competition. Additional hosts for the event include Coral Reef Yacht Club, Key Biscayne Yacht Club, Coconut Grove Sailing Club, Miami Rowing Club and Shake-a-Leg Miami. These sailing organizations host classes onshore, as well as help run the on-the-water racing. The Coral Reef Yacht Club also hosts the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

In addition to title sponsor Rolex Watch U.S.A., the 2012 Rolex Miami OCR is also sponsored by AlphaGraphics, Sperry Top-Sider, Harken McLube, Kattack, Gowrie-Chubb, Trinity Yachts and the University of Miami Hospital.

A complete roster of competitors can be viewed at the event website http://rmocr.ussailing.org, where real-time racecourse blogging, commentary and fan interaction, regatta results, photos and news updates have been integrated into a live coverage platform. Video highlights produced by T2p.tv and presented by Rolex will air beginning Wednesday, January 25, and will be available on-demand on the event website. Viewers also can follow the racing using the Kattack feature on Friday, January 27, on the 470 Men, Laser, Women’s Match Racing, and Sonar courses. Fans can also follow the event on Facebook/RMOCR and Twitter/RMOCR.

(end)

 CONTACT:
Barby MacGowan, Media Pro Int’l for Rolex Watch U.S.A.
barby.macgowan@mediapronewport.com
P: +1 401-849-0220

Course A:
RS:X Men – 11:00
RS:X Women – 11:10
49er – 13:00

Course B:
2.4 mR – 10:30
Sonar – 13:00
SKUD 18 – 13:10

Course C:
470 Women – 10:30
470 Men – 10:45
Laser Men (Yellow/Gold) – 13:00
Laser Men (Blue/Silver) – 13:15
Laser Radial – 13:30

Course D:
Star – 11:00
Finn – 12:30

Course E:
Women’s Match Racing – 9:00

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

GBR's Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark

MIAMI, FLA. (January 24, 2012) – Today’s 8-11 knot breeze on Biscayne Bay allowed three of the Rolex Miami OCR’s 10 Olympic classes to catch up on the races they lost due to dying winds yesterday afternoon, and 529 sailors from 41 countries now have two days behind them in this important ISAF Sailing World Cup event. Three Paralympic classes also are competing here, adding to a total of 354 boats scattered across four racing circles plus a separate arena for women’s match racing.

“It was way better than yesterday, and the Finns got the best of it because the wind was building all day,” said Zach Railey (Clearwater, Fla.), adding that his class started racing an hour earlier (12:30) than scheduled to add three races to yesterday’s single race. The leader going into today, Railey could do nothing wrong as he methodically picked off his competition—most notably Caleb Paine (San Diego, Calif., USA) and Jonas Hogh Christensen (DEN)–to quadruple the victories in his score line today.

“In the first race, I was in a great battle with Caleb,” said Railey. “We were two boat lengths apart from each other and on the last leg back and forth the whole time. In the second race, it was a battle up the second windward leg with Jonas, but he got separated by two boats that were on his heels–he had to concentrate on them.”

Railey said that even if he keeps doing well over five days of fleet racing, it will come down to the ten-boat medal race on Saturday to determine who takes home gold here, since only the top ten boats on the scoreboard at the end of Friday move on to that race, which counts double in the scoring. “Even going in with the lowest points, you could gain 18 points on that day,” he said, adding that it replicates the format of the Olympics, to which he will go this summer as the USA’s Finn representative. “Everything will be very much like here, even the 26- boat fleet.”

For Railey, a bonus will be trying to win his second Olympic medal (his first was a silver in the Finn class in 2008) alongside his sister, Paige Railey, who qualified to compete for the USA in Laser Radial class.

“It has been a dream of ours to go together since I started sailing at age eight and she started shortly after me. We fell in love with the idea of walking into Opening Ceremonies together; I don’t know if it really will sink in until we look over at each other and say, ‘we did it!’”

470 Men’s and Women’s classes flip-flopped their afternoon race schedule (2:15 and 2:00, respectively) with the Lasers’ morning slot (10:30 and 10:45 for blue and yellow fleets, respectively) to ensure they also would be able to fit in three races. Consequently, it allowed Mat Belcher and Malcolm Page (AUS) to knock brothers Sven and Kalle Coster (NED) out of first place. “It’s too early in the regatta to tell, and a lot can happen, so we’re just focusing on ourselves, but it was nice to come away with three good races today,” said Belcher, explaining that he and Page, who posted finish positions of 1-2-6 today, also will be representing their country at the London 2012 Olympic Games. “Our stronger wind performance is certainly much better than our lighter wind, so these conditions are perfect for us, and exactly why we’re here: to enjoy the challenge.”

In the 49er Class, Erik Storck and Trevor Moore are still holding on to a solid first place. “We were in first going into today and put up three solid races today so we’re still standing in first,” said Storck who added that within the 23-boat fleet, there are a handful of competitors who will be joining them at the summer Olympics, including the Austrian team of Nico Luca Marc Delle Karth and Nikolaus Resch, who are currently five points behind them in overall scoring. “We’ll keep an eye on them going forward in the regatta, but it is still early. Our goal is to keep going out and putting up top-threes and going to the medal race with a little gap.”

In the Women’s Match Racing today, Group B completed 11 flights, a full round robin, and though all of the teams were extremely close in scores, Mandy Mulder/Annemiek Bekkering/Merel Witteveen (NED) prevailed with 6 wins and 1 loss. Yesterday, Group A also completed 11 flights, and the leader was Silja Lehtinen/Siljan Kanerva/Mikaela Wulff (FIN) with 8 wins and 1 loss. For this discipline, medals will be determined by the “last women standing” in Saturday’s two-boat Finals and Petit Finals.

US Sailing’s Rolex Miami OCR, established in 1990, is open to boats competing in events chosen for the Olympic and Paralympic Sailing Competitions. The 10 Olympic classes for 2012 are: Laser Radial (women), Laser (men), Finn (men), Men’s RS:X, Women’s RS:X, 49er (men), Men’s 470, Women’s 470, Star (men) and Elliot 6m (women). The three Paralympic classes are: 2.4mR (open), SKUD (mixed) and Sonar (mixed).

For fleet racing in the Olympic classes, the Rolex Miami OCR consists of a five-day opening series (Monday – Friday) and a double-point medal race (Saturday). The top 10 finishers in the opening series of each class will advance to the medal race. For match racing (Elliott 6m), which makes its debut in the 2012 Olympic Games, the regatta will consist of an opening series, a knockout series, and a sail-off for boats not advancing to the knockout series. Competitors in the Paralympic classes have five days of fleet racing (Monday-Friday) and no medal race.

Medals will be awarded to the top three boats in each Olympic and Paralympic class on Saturday, January 28.

Regatta Headquarters are located at the US Sailing Center Miami, an official Olympic training center, in the Coconut Grove section of Miami, Fla. Event organizers have partnered with the city of Miami to provide world-class venues for competition. Additional hosts for the event include Coral Reef Yacht Club, Key Biscayne Yacht Club, Coconut Grove Sailing Club, Miami Rowing Club and Shake-a-Leg Miami. These sailing organizations host classes onshore, as well as help run the on-the-water racing. The Coral Reef Yacht Club also hosts the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

In addition to title sponsor Rolex Watch U.S.A., the 2012 Rolex Miami OCR is also sponsored by AlphaGraphics, Sperry Top-Sider, Harken McLube, Kattack, Gowrie-Chubb, Trinity Yachts and the University of Miami Hospital.

A complete roster of competitors can be viewed at the event website http://rmocr.ussailing.org, where real-time racecourse blogging, commentary and fan interaction, regatta results, photos and news updates have been integrated into a live coverage platform. Video highlights produced by T2p.tv and presented by Rolex will air beginning Wednesday, January 25, and will be available on-demand on the event website. Fans can also follow the event on Facebook/RMOCR and Twitter/RMOCR.

(end)

CONTACT:

Barby MacGowan, Media Pro Int’l for Rolex Watch U.S.A.

barby.macgowan@mediapronewport.com

P: +1 401-849-0220