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Golds for GB's 470 men and Australian 49er World Champs

Nic Asher and Elliot Willis won Great Britain’s second gold medal of the 2009 Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta when they won the 470 class at Weymouth and Portland this afternoon.

 

And there was a second medal in the class for Team Skandia GBR as Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell took silver.

 

Asher and Willis went into today’s medal race neck and neck with Australia’s Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page – who had led the fleet from the start of the regatta.

 

The Brits knew finishing ahead of the Aussies would give them a strong change of winning gold. The Australian pair got away from the start line well, but were then called back for making an early start.

 

Asher and Willis went on to finish eighth – which was enough for them to take the gold medal.

 

Asher said: “We were pretty confident and it turned out well for us in the end.  We’ve sailed really well together and the conditions have been great all week.

 

“Everything has been great on shore and it couldn’t really have been any better.”

 

Willis added: “We’re very happy. It’s good to win at your home venue.

 

“We didn’t sail well at the World Championships, we just made some bad decisions. We made this a bit of a target for ourselves after that.”

 

Patience and Bithell were also pleased with their silver medal, which came hot on the heels of their silver at the World Championships. The pair have only been sailing together for a month. The pair were runners-up to the Dutch crew of Steven Le Fevre and Steven Krol in the medal race.

 

Patience said: “We just kept our nose clear around the course. We just tried to be conservative and consolidate our position. We didn’t really make any mistakes we let the others do that.”

 

Bithell added: “It was a tense race. We had quite a lot to lose going into it.”

 

Bronze went to the Spanish crew of Onan Barreiros and Aaron Sarmiento, who came third in the medal race to keep Belcher and Page off the podium by a single point.

 

Another Australian crew did have something to celebrate today though, when Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen collected gold in the 49er class. The pair, who won the World Championships in July, dominated the regatta and had built up such a substantial lead that they had won before the medal race.

 

Italian brothers Pietro and Gianfranco Sibello came third in the medal race to take silver in the regatta, while fourth was good enough to ensure France’s Manu Dyer and Stephane Christidis won bronze. Iker Martinez de Lizarduy and Xabier Fernandez won the medal race.

 

Outteridge said: “It’s the first time we’ve sailed here and we’ve had a really good week here. The conditions have been quite good for us. We’ll be back here plenty more times before the Games. Hopefully we’ll be back to get some more medals next year.”