| ROTA, BAY OF CADIZ, SPAIN-(20-9-2003) First Ladies that stepped onto the slipway were Therese Torgersson / Vendela Zachrisson from Sweden. They had a second flag from the Jury on their way to the upper mark after the start. and had to leave the race course.
The biggest fear they had was the possible result that they would not make it to the Gold Fleet and their attempt to qualify their country would be unsuccessful in this early phase.
As the results came in, they are sure of their place in the Gold Fleet as 19th overall.
No significant changes appear after the completion of race 6, and final qualification race of the women. As their might be protests, any comments about who will reach Gold Fleet limits, will unfortunately not be in this report.
The men in Group A sailed only one race today, and stayed ashore while Group B and C went on the water to catch up in the number of races with Group A.
Andreas Kosmatopoulos comment on their win at the first race this morning:
“With all five boats that actually ended in the top five, we battled competed the whole race with Japan in the lead at the beginning.
At the final downwind track we decided to tack early to find more wind on the left side of the course. This seemed to be the right one as we finally managed to win it.
Andreas and Kosmas go way back in the 470. In 1995 they became World Champions, last year they were second at the 470 Worlds in a very close race with Simon Cooke / Peter Nicholas from New Zealand
“The Fleet is extremely strong.” Andreas said “ Most remarkable in a positive way are the Koreans. We didn’t meet them much in the Intl. Circuit. They do good and take the right decisions during the race.”
Race 4 in the late afternoon in Group B was won by Sven & Kalle Coster from the Netherlands. “We had a great race. We started in free position at the end of the group. “ Kalle says. “Having free wind and advantage of a shift we managed to get to the upper mark first together with Javier CONTE / Juan DE LA FUENTE from Argentina. As only the guys from Argentina and us set the spinnaker on the reach, we managed to sail away from the Fleet behind us.” On the downwind course we managed to get ahead of the Javier and Juan by a great game of gibing.” Sven adds.
Kalle, crew of the Dutch team had an injury in June this year. Reason why they had to skip the Europeans. As some of the symptoms of his illness which affect the physical strength came back already in Athens. The first two days of this event he has suffered a lot of pain and now he has intensive medical support of the Dutch Sports doctor with strong medicines to lower the pain. Both boys have a 420 and Optimist background. They are coached by their father, Dick Coster, who participated at the Olympics in Montreal 1976 and Talinn 1980 in the Soling Class.
The Women have finalized their qualifiers by six races. All Men groups will sail two races tomorrow, which was scheduled as a reserve day.
For more information, visit the event web site at www.cadizworlds2003.com or the Intl 470 web site a www.470.org
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