Match Racing - Sun Microsystems Australia Cup 2000 - Day 5
by John Roberson 1 Apr 2000 15:14 BST
BARKER ONE UP IN THE FINAL AFTER DAY 4
Team New Zealand's Dean Barker is 1 - 0 up over Peter Gilmour and his Pizza
LA team in the first-to-win-three race final of the Sun Microsystems
Australia Cup.
The race had been neck and neck for the first lap and half, but when
Gilmour's bowman Kazuhiko Sofuko fell overboard as then turned for the
finish, it was all over.
Gilmour, ever the gentleman, took responsibility, "we quickly swung into a
gybe, and to do it you've got to turn pretty quickly, and Sofuko was on the
bow pulling in the jib, and it just went from under him," he explained.
"If the bowman's not hanging on, you're gone, and he wasn't expecting it,
because I just instantaniously reacted, so it was my fault, I take full
responsibility."
Sofuko simply commented, "When you are Peter's bowman you have to hang on!"
It was a long hot day on the Swan river, with the completion of the last
four elimination rounds, in which Barker, Gilmour, Frenchman Bertrand Pace
and Australia's Sebastien Destremau made the cut into the semi-finals.
Barker as the highest scoring qualifier won the right to select his
semi-finals opponent, and chose Sebastien Destremau's Sportscom team,
leaving Bertrand Pace's Le Defi Francais team to face Gilmour.
Both semi-finals went to the wire, with Gilmour and Barker winning the
opening bout, but Pace and Destremau levelling the score, before Gilmour
and Barker again took the deciders.
In the first race of the petit final (the sail-off for third and fourth)
the Le Defi Team went one up against Destremau and the Sportscom team.
SUN MICROSYSTEMS AUSTRALIA CUP 2000 - Results after Day 5
Scores at the end of the double round robin eliminations:
Helm Nation Won Lost
-----------------------------------------------
Dean Barker New Zealand 16.5 5
Bertrand Pace France 16 6
Peter Gilmour Japan 14 8
Sebastien Destremau Australi) 13 9
Peter Holmberg US Virgin Islands 13 9
Jes Gram-Hansen Denmark 10 12
Luc Pillot France 10 12
James Spithill Australia 9.5 12
Gordon Lucas Australia 9 13
Magnus Holmberg Sweden 9 13
Bjorn Hansen Sweden 8 14
Andy Green Great Britain 4 18
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