Good Start for French Xavier Revil and Christophe Espagnon at Tornado worlds 6/12/06

The first day of racing at the Tornado world championship in Argentina started with light and shifty wind conditions yesterday.

After a short postponement seven of the 48 Tornados that started the light south-easterly 6-8 knots wind race were OCSs including Olympic Medalists USA John Lovell and Charlie Ogletree and NZL Aaron McIntosh and Bruce Kendall.

Double Olympic Medalists AUT Roman Hagara and Hans Peter Steinacher led from the start followed by number 1 ranked FRA Xavier Revil and Christophe Espagnon.?The Austrian team opened a comfortable distance to cross the line in first followed by the French.

The clean right side of the gate in the second upwind paid off for PUR Enrique Figueroa and Jorge Hernandez and NED Mitch Booth and Pim Nieuwenhis who finished 3rd and 4th respectively.

The south-easterly picked up and the Tornados started race two with a 10-12 knots breeze and gusts reaching 14 knots. After a clean start the fleet divided itself to both sides of the course.

Once again, the leader, AUS Darren Bundock and Glenn Ashby, opened a good distance. Behind them the GRE team of Iordanis Paschaladis and Constantinos Trigonis and GER Johannes Polgar and Florian Spalteholz were closely fighting for the second position.

On the second downwind the jib of the Ozzies came down and the lead they had wasn’t enough to keep them ahead of the second, GER Johannes Polgar and Florian Spalteholz. The Germans took the bullet, followed by the Ozzies.

The Greek team of Paschaladis and Trigonis crossed the line in 3rd, followed by ESP Javier Padron and Antonio Cuevas Mons in 4th and FRA Xavier Revil and Christophe Espagnon in 5th.

Winners of Race 1, AUT Roman Hagara and Hans Peter Steinacher, crossed the line in 8th.

Results (after two races)
1 FRA Xavier Revil and Christophe Espagnon 7 pts
2 AUS Darren Bundock and Glenn Ashby 8 pts
3 AUT Roman Hagara and Hans Peter Steinacher 9 pts
4 GER Johannes Polgar and Florian Spalteholz 16 pts
5 NED Mitch Booth and Pim Nieuwenhis 16 pts