The penultimate leg of the 2010 ISAF Sailing World Cup series is set to get underway in Kiel, Germany, today (19 June), with a mix of youth and experience making up the 27-strong British team competing at the event.
With a number of Olympic classes World and European Championships looming, Skandia Team GBR has fielded a streamlined team for the Kiel regatta, with Olympic bronze medal-winning windsurfer Bryony Shaw, double gold medallist Sarah Ayton and Saskia Clark, and Lucy Macgregor’s world number one-ranked match racing team among the line-up.
Shaw has claimed a hat-trick of medals at the three European legs of the World Cup series, so will be hungry for a fourth in Kiel, while three of Britain’s leading 49er crews – Palma World Cup silver medallists Chris Draper-Peter Greenhalgh, 2009 world silver medallist John Pink-Rick Peacock and Dylan Fletcher-Alain Sign, the top GBR crew at the 2010 Worlds – have also made the trip.
In the 2.4mR Paralympic class, Helena Lucas and Megan Pascoe will hope to make it a fourth straight World Cup podium spot for Skandia Team GBR in this single-handed event, with Lucas having sealed silver at the Palma leg of the series, and bronze at last month’s Delta Lloyd Regatta in Holland, while Pascoe secured bronze at the French Olympic Sailing Week, Hyeres in April.
Sarah Ayton and Saskia Clark will be the only Skandia Team GBR entry in the 470 women’s event, while in the men’s fleet the development squad teams of Phil Sparks-Chris Grube, Ben Saxton-David Kohler and Matt Mee-Ian Dobson will hope to shine.
Annie Lush will rejoin Lucy Macgregor in the Elliot 6m women’s match racing event, after missing the Delta Lloyd Regatta to observe at the Louis Vuitton Trophy, with Macgregor’s younger sister Kate stepping on board in place of Ally Martin, who’s sailing in Kiel with Mary Rook and Bethan Carden on the second British boat.
Alex Mills-Barton, fresh from his under 21 European silver medal last week in Estonia, will feature in the Laser fleet alongside Skandia Team GBR development squad sailors Rob Godwin, Eifion Mon and Robert Holmes.
Racing for the Olympic and Paralympic classes at Kiel Week starts on Saturday 19 June and concludes on Wednesday 23 June.
For the latest news and information from the British Sailing Team, visit www.skandiateamgbr.com
