Star class at Athens 2004 overall
by Bob Fisher 28 Aug 2004 20:16 BST
Torben Grael and Marcelo Ferreira of Brazil did it all with a race to spare. Their domination of the class was embarrassingly complete where seven other of their competitors in the 17-boat fleet were also previous world champions. They carved their way to a set of solid results that never took them out of the gold medal position after day one.
It took Grael to become the most medalled Olympic sailor ever – his gold this time is added to the one he won in Savannah in 1996 and the two bronze he has scored in this class together with the silver he won in the Soling at Los Angeles in 1984. Five medal from six Olympic appearances!
The rest of the fleet was clearly racing for the silver and bronze and that was open until the last. Iain Percy and Steve Mitchell, on whom British hopes were pinned, lost their chance on the penultimate day, in race ten of the series, when they had communication problems on the start line. ‘It was a schoolboy error,’ admitted Percy. He added that another error in an earlier race, when a misjudged lay-line to the windward mark had let several boats go past them, was a crucial error that should have been controlled.
It didn’t stop the British pair from making the most perfectly timed start at the pin end in the final race to lead the field until a right hand shift put Mark Neeleman and Pieter van Neekerk of Holland , who banged the right hand corner, came out smiling as the wind dropped from 10 to six knots. They were 1:20 ahead after just 13 minutes of sailing, equivalent to a ten percent superiority on the leg.
They were never to be overtaken, but Ross Macdonald and Mike Wolfs of Canada grabbed second place at the first mark and never relinquished it. With Xavier Rohart and Pascal Rambeau of France tucked back in seventh, this gave Macdonald the silver (he scored a bronze in Barcelona in 1992) and the French pair took home the bronze.
Percy and Mitchell wound up in fourth place in this race and that confirmed their sixth place. They have sworn to return to the Olympic scene for Beijing in 2008, like the majority of their opponents, most of whom must be hoping that Grael will retire, now that Robert Scheidt has acquired a Star and hopes to qualify for next year’s world championship in Argentina.