Luckless final day at Qingdao for Nathan Outterridge
A luckless spinnaker foul-up has cost Squadron member Nathan Outterridge and his crew Ben Austin a Gold Medal in the 49er class at the Olympic Sailing Test Event, which ended this week at Qingdao, China.
Nathan and Ben were in second place behind Spain in the final gold medal race and only needed to maintain their position to win overall and take Gold.
However, according to reports from Qingdao, the tack line to the spinnaker pole broke and got tangled under the boat. It took 90 precious seconds to get the line sorted, and they then had to set up a jury rig to finish the race – not only losing Gold but placing 5th overall.
The Squadron’s other representative in Australia’s team, Nicky Bethwaite and her crew of Karyn Gojnich and Angela Farrell finished 8th overall after placing 5th in the final race.
Australia finished second in the medal tally at the test regatta for next year’s Olympic Games, with the sailing again at Qingdao, collecting four medals – two gold, one silver and one bronze. Great Britain topped the table with six medals (5 gold, 1 silver) while New Zealand gained three medals (1 gold, 2 silver).
The medal winners were the two 470 crews – Nathan Wilmot & Malcolm Page (NSW) and Elise Rechichi & Tessa Parkinson (WA), while the silver went to the Tornado crew of Darren Bundock and Glenn Ashby (NSW). Jessica Crisp (NSW) won the bronze medal in the RX:S (Windsurfer) class while World champion Tom Slingsby (NSW) missed out by one point on a bronze medal in the Laser class.
In the Star class Iain Murray and Andrew Palfrey (NSW) finished 11th overall, Krystal Weir (Vic) 14th in the Laser Radial and Anthony Nossiter (NSW) 16th overall in the Finn class. – Peter Campbell
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