SAILING: The all conquering 470 class combination of Mathew Belcher and Will Ryan added to their overflowing trophy cabinet on Friday, winning male sailor of the year at the 2014 Yachting Australia awards. Meanwhile Tom Burton (NSW) finished third in the Laser fleet at the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Qingdao (14-18 October), China.
Yachting Australia Awards
Mathew Belcher and Will Ryan have dominated the medal podium, domestically and internationally, over the past 12 months.
Belcher and Ryan's recent world title win earned Australia a quota place at the 2016 Olympics and capped off another extraordinarily successful year.
Their 2014 list of accomplishments also includes Australian and European championships, victory at the Rio Olympic test event and two gold, one silver and one bronze at the four ISAF World Cup regattas.
Those accolades came on top of winning the 2013 Australian Institute of Sport team of the year, and Belcher being named 2013 ISAF world sailor of the year.
The pair have been nominated as finalists for the 2014 ISAF world sailor of the year - to be announced in November.
Yachting Australia's female sailor of the year was awarded to Vanessa Dudley.
She completed her 18th Sydney to Hobart, finishing second on Syd Fischer's super maxi Ragamuffin 100, while achieving line honours and several race records on the boat in a number of offshore events.
Dudley was 2013 world champion in the grand master laser radial division at the laser master world championships in Oman, beating all her male competitors.
She also won the Australian title in the grand master women's radial in March 2014 and placed third overall at the NSW laser radial open championships.
Kurt Hansen and Harry Morton were named youth sailors of the year, having already made an impact in senior circles.
Hansen and Morton took out the open and youth divisions at the 29er world championships. They logged a series of other solid international results and dominated the domestic 29er circuit.
Morton also won the junior contender world championships in January 2014.
The sailor of the year with a disability went to the team of Daniel Fitzgibbon, Liesl Tesch, Colin Harrison, Jonathan Harris, Russell Boaden and Matthew Bugg.
The team of six beat Great Britain by one point at the IFDS world championship to be named the best performing national team across all Paralympic classes. Their results qualified Australia in all three Paralympic classes for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.
Competitor, designer and event director Iain Murray won the sport professional award and Bill Gale and John Calvert-Jones were recognised with lifetime achievement awards.
Meanwhile...
Burton wins bronze
Australian Sailing Team’s Tom Burton (NSW) finished third in the Laser fleet at the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Qingdao (14-18 October), China.
The current ISAF World Rankings number one Laser sailor and recent World Championship silver medallist was the only Australian Sailing Team member participating at the event. Australian Sailing Squad’s Mark Spearman finished the regatta in 18th.
It was a light wind, big wave finish at ISAF Sailing World Cup Qingdao as the medallists were decided across the six fleets competing on the waters of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Sailing Competition.
It was a week of ups and downs for Burton who struggled on the opening day with the current but was back to his best from the off on day two. He took a race win that day ahead of Pavlos Kontides (CYP) who finished the regatta in second. Croatian Tonci Stipanović was the overall winner at this World Cup.
After nine races over five days Burton went into the final medal race in third with only one point separating him from Wannes Van Laer (BEL) in fourth.
In the medal race, Burton came through in third, three places ahead of Van Laer to take bronze but there were a few nerves on the race track, “The first beat everybody had a close eye on each other. I wasn’t looking too good at the top mark. Wannes was in front by a few boats so I just had to stay close and put a bit of pressure on him. I managed to get a bit of pressure on the second beat and just snuck past and held off to the finish.”
“I’m reasonably happy. It’s nice to finish a tough week, I wasn’t happy with the way I was sailing. The guys at the front were really on to it. You’ve got to be on top of your game.”
The ISAF Sailing World Cup Final set to be held at the end of November in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates will be up next for Burton. Burton already secured the invite based on his silver medal result at the World Championships in Santander, Spain in September.
At the beginning of December the Australian Sailing Team will compete on home waters at the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Melbourne from 7 – 14 December 2014.
Australian Sailing Team & AAP
