Australia finished with three gold medals and consequently three top spots in the ISAF Sailing World Cup Standings as the home nation delivered the goods on the final day of racing at Sail Melbourne.
As the first of seven events in the inaugural ISAF Sailing World Cup series, Sail Melbourne brought together a combination of Olympic stars and 2012 hopefuls to Port Phillip Bay for six days of intense racing. Australia ended top of the medal standings with three golds, although the home-nation whitewash some had predicted failed to materialize. Sailors from Chile, France, Great Britain, Spain and the USA all leave Melbourne with ISAF Sailing World Cup gold medals, as the hosts were forced to play second fiddle to an array of international stars across many of the fleets.There was no surprise finish in the Women’s One Person Dinghy - Laser Radial fleet, as US Olympic gold medallist Anna TUNNICLIFFE opened her ISAF Sailing World Cup account with maximum points this week.
TUNNICLIFFE, who has battled ill health in the latter stage of the week, managed to hold it together to clearly win her class on 25 points, nine points clear of rising Aussie star Gabrielle KING, with Andrea BREWSTER (GBR) third with 40 points. The world #1 ranked Laser Radial sailor dominated racing with five wins from her 11 starts and held off a late charge from KING to secure gold in today’s final race.
Next up, the ISAF Sailing World Cup moves to North America, for the second event, the Rolex Miami OCR from 25-31 January 2009.