7 Medals for New Zealand at Sail Melbourne Regatta

7 Medals for New Zealand at Sail Melbourne Regatta

The Sail Melbourne Regatta finished last night and 7 New Zealand entrant's stepped up to the podium to receive their medals.

Boardsailors Jon-Paul Tobin and Thomas Ashley took gold and silver respectively in the men's mistral. Tobin increased his 2 point lead to a comfortable 7 points with a (2,2) in the last two races of the series.

In the women's mistral, current world champion Barbara Kendall also won gold after going into the last day of the regatta in second place, 2 points behind Natasha Sturges (GBR). Her bullet and second place put her 2 points ahead of Sturges on the leaderboard yesterday, with Sturges scoring (5,3).

Andrew May, the only NZL 2.4mr Para Olympic class competitor won bronze in a fleet of Australian entries.

Jake Bartrom won the gold in the Laser Radial fleet, with a 8 point lead on Australia's Richard Howard.

Tornado sailors Nigel Williams and Jeremy Stephenson finished in 3rd place with two 4th places yesterday.

Shelley Hesson and Linda Dickson held onto 3rd place with two 2nd's. Sydney 2000 Gold Medallist's, Jenny Armstrong and Belinda Stowell (AUS) topped the 470 class leaderboard.

Yachting New Zealand Coach Peter Fox commented from the event late last night, "long regatta's are always really tough on the sailors, especially in these conditions, the winds were strong which was resulting in some huge waves. We are happy with the overall results, Shelley and Linda fought hard throughout the regatta against very strong competition, and all the NZL competitor's had good races. Obviously we are very happy with the medal's, the boards did well again against top ranked competition and the three top 3 finishes is a great result for them."

For a full list of all New Zealand results check the official regatta website: http://www.sailmelbourne.com.au/

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