Another Gold for Dempsey

Nick Dempsey delivered gold for Britain at the Holland regatta rounding off Skandia team GBR’s seven medal haul from this ISAF grade 1 event. 

Dempsey has now had a podium finish at all of the Olympic classes regattas he’s competed in this year, with golds also from Miami and Palma, and a silver at the French Olympic sailing week in Hyeres.

The 25 year old picked his way through the RS:X fleet during the course of the week and was lying in second place heading into the final medal race on the Ijsselmeer.  With wind speeds in excess of 20 knots, Dempsey pulled out all the stops, winning the medal race by several hundred metres to clinch the gold ahead of Brazialian Ricardo Santos and local sailor Joeri Van Dyke.

“It was important for me to win here,” said Dempsey.  “We’ve got the RS:X Europeans coming up in just over a weeks time, so to win here has been good psychological preparation.”

“To get three firsts and a second in the four major events this year can’t be bad”.

Dempsey’s partner, Athens Gold medallist Sarah Ayton, steered her way to silver in the Yngling class.  This is also Sarah’s fourth podium finish this year.