Match Racing - Sun Microsystems Australia Cup 2000 - Day 2
by John Roberson 29 Mar 2000 15:29 BST
GILMOUR AND BARKER SHARE THE LEAD AFTER DAY 2
Australian skipper Peter Gilmour and his Pizza-LA Japanese team share the
top of the scoreboard with New Zealand's Dean Barker after two days of the
Sun Microsystems Australia Cup.
Both teams end the day with seven wins and two losses, and are two points
clear of third place, which is shared by Frenchman Bertrand Pace and
Australian resident Frenchman Sebastien Destremau.
Barker and his Team New Zealand crew also pick up a Aus$3,000 bonus for
winning five consecutive races.
The Team New Zealand crew had a slow start to the day, losing their first
two races to Destremau and Gilmour before putting their string of victories
together.
Gilmour seems to have got over his "attack of the slows" that plagued him
in Auckland last week, when he finished a distant eighth in the Steinlager
Line 7 Cup, the first event on the Swedish Match Tour.
The only two losses the Pizza-LA team suffered were at the hands of Swede
Magnus Holmberg and Denmark's Jes Gram-Hansen.
Bertrand Pace, and his Le Defi Francais team, are in a stronger position at
this stage of the current regatta than they were at a similar time last
week in Auckland, where they went on to take the trophy.
Sebastien Destremau and his SportsCom team are the "local heroes" in this
event, their best previous result, a second place in 1998, which they would
desperately like to better.
The middle order of this regatta is proving to be extremely tight, with six
teams all having scored four wins.
There is no doubt that every place in this event is going to be fought for,
with none of the matches in any way predictable, and the only certainty,
that this regatta is going to go to the wire.
The crews battled through a good mix of conditions, with a shifty and
patchy south easterly in the morning, being overcome by a steady 10 to 12
knot seabreeze in the afternoon.
The event has an ambitious programme of a double round robin, in which all
the skippers sail against each other twice, followed by semi-finals and
finals.
SUN MICROSYSTEMS AUSTRALIA CUP 2000 - Results after Day 2
Helm Nation Won Lost
----------------------------------------------
Dean Barker New Zealand 7 2
Peter Gilmour Japan 7 2
Bertrand Pace France 5 3
Sebastien Destremau Australia 5 4
Peter Holmberg US Virgin Islands 4 4
James Spithill Australia 4 4
Bjorn Hansen Sweden 4 4
Gordon Lucas Australia 4 5
Magnus Holmberg Sweden 4 5
Jes Gram-Hansen Denmark 4 5
Andy Green Great Britain 2 7
Luc Pillot France 2 7
|
|