It was a dog eat dog day to decide the 470 European Championship titles. Going into the day, in the 470 Women fleet the teams guaranteed of medals were determined, but not which team would secure the gold or silver.
It was a tough race day, with a postponement ashore, followed by a postponement on the water for the 470 Women fleet, which knocked back the start time for the 470 Men.
470 WOMEN Up first onto the Medal Race track, which was located just off the harbour wall with, were the 470 Women. When racing got underway, the breeze was around 6-7 knots and fairly shift across the course.
The European Championship gold medal was all about Camille Lecointre/Mathilde Geron of France and Lara Vadlau/Jola Ogar from Austria. Who dares wins - and initially the daring win looked set to be with Vadlau/Ogar who were up in second overall after the first upwind and held their position virtually to the bottom of the first downwind leg behind Jo Aleh/Polly Powrie. But a gybe for the gate by the Kiwis forced the Austrian pair to hold off before they could gybe, losing them valuable ground which the French swiftly moved in to. By the next upwind mark, the Austrians were in last place with an immense challenge ahead to catch up, whilst the French team had assured themselves of gold.
The Austrian pair fought back and managed to move up one place to 7th but were left 10 points adrift of the French who safely sailed through to claim gold after crossing the line in third.
Ashore after racing, a beaming Lecointre said, "This is the first victory ever at big event for us. We were always 2nd, 3rd or 4th, so this is a major victory!"
"We made a mistake by not starting next to the Austrians and not controlling them," explained Lecointre. "But we managed to catch them in the first downwind. Then because of the wind shift, we were in a position to gybe before them going into the gate, and we rounded in front of them and then we were then in control." From that point the gold medal was safely in their hands.
Whilst disappointed to have lost the valuable places in the downwind let, Ogar was philosophical about the race saying, "This was a really tough tactical situation and we had spoken a lot with our coaches about how we should defend as we haven't managed to do so before now, and this situation has happened before." However, their silver medal success is what counted today and Ogar acknowledged their success, "For us this result is really great. All the time, even in the World Cup, we were really close to a medal position, but never medalled. We both know our time is coming and we are really happy to get a silver medal at the European Championship."
Defending European Champion, Sophie Weguelin and her new crew Eilidh McIntyre were guaranteed the bronze medal going into the day, and with nothing to lose were on a mission to secure a top three place in the Open Europeans leaderboard too. They would have to beat the Olympic Gold Medal pair of Jo Aleh/Polly Powrie and the Kiwis were certainly not letting anyone get in their way today knocking out a start to finish Medal Race win, which handed them second overall at the 470 Women Open Europeans, with Camille Lecointre/Mathilde Geron first and Lara Vadlau/Jolanta Ogarin third. 470 Women Top Three - 470 European Championships 1. Camille Lecointre/Mathilde Geron (FRA) - 30 pts 2. Lara Vadlau/Jolanta Ogar (AUT) - 40 pts 3. Sophie Weguelin/Eilidh Mcintyre (GBR) - 52 pt
