Bronze for British boys

Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield, who will be representing Great Britain at the Olympics this summer in Athens, will be leaving Croatia with a bronze medal from the 2004 470 world championship.

After just missing out on a medal in Sydney, where they finished an agonising fourth, Rogers and Glanfield have continued to train hard, winning selection to Athens 2004 at their world championship last September and since then scoring a number of podium positions including last month winning the Princess Sofia Regatta in Palma and a bronze medal at Hyeres Olympic Week.

The British pairing scored consistently throughout the week in Zadar, finishing in the top five in seven of the races and only finishing out of the top ten twice. Going into the final day they were placed third overall and after racing was abandoned on the final day due to lack of breeze, are happy to win the bronze medal.

Rogers commented: “We are really pleased to have medalled at this event. Our score line makes the championship look fairly easy but on a number of occasions it was certainly quite stressful and we made some good comebacks. We sailed really well in the final series – the gold fleet, and this we are particularly pleased with as the standard of the gold fleet is similar to how it will be at the Olympics in three months time.”

The 2003 world silver medallists Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page of Australia went one better this year, winning the event by seven points from Johan Molund and Martin Andersson of Sweden.

In the women’s fleet Therese Torgersson and Vendela Zachrisson of Sweden are the newly crowned world champions, winning gold from Vesna Dekleva and Klara Maucec of Slovenia, with Nike Kornecki and Vered Bouskila of Israel taking home the bronze.

Rogers and Glanfield will next compete at their European championship which takes place from the 1-10 June in Warnemunde, Germany.

Overall Results

Men – Gold fleet

1, Nathan Wilmot/Malcolm Page, AUS (1,1,10,2,9,4,(19),11,(23),2,1,3) 44 pts

2, Johan Molund/Martin Andersson, SWE (1,4,3,6,15,2,3,1,(21),(18),7,9) 51 pts

3, Nick Rogers/Joe Glanfield, GBR (2,(18),5,10,4,5,8,(15),3,3,9,5) 54 pts

Other GBR

18, Nic Asher/Elliot Willis (11,5,2,2,(31),3,11,20,26,8,(27),13) 101 pts

20, Graham Vials/Bevis Field (6,10,11,18,15,2,(20),12,18,16,8,(23)) 116 pts

Women – Gold fleet

1, Therese Torgersson/Vendela Zachrisson, SWE (3,(14),6,1,1,8,(20),7,9,7,12,1) 55 pts

2, Vesna Dekleva/Klara Maucec, SLO (10,2,1,1,(21),3,9,14,2,6,8,(23)) 56 pts

3, Nike Kornecki/Vered Bouskila, ISR ((15),(15),9,4,1,1,11,11,7,5,5,3) 57 pts

GBR

Christina Bassadone/Katherine Hopson retired from the event due to illness