Thursday, September 28, 2000
News Online

Robertson at helm of British medal hopes

Barring disasters, Great Britain’s Shirley Robertson will win her first Olympic sailing medal tomorrow, and the chances are it will be gold. And Ben Ainslie should also have either the gold or the silver wrapped up in the Laser class as his epic battle with Brazilian rival Robert Scheidt reaches its climax.

In fresh conditions on Sydney Harbour today, just when Robertson needed it most, she produced another fine race, finishing second in the Europe fleet behind Margriet Matthysse, of the Netherlands. This was enough to see the Briton regain the overall lead with just two of the scheduled 11 races left to sail.

With today's performance, Robertson has all but booked her place at the top of the podium. All she needs is to finish in the top five in either of tomorrow's two heats and ensure she is ahead of the overall second-placed Argentine sailor, Serena Amato, to win the gold.

This would be a career-high for a woman who has spent 11 long years on the trail of Olympic glory. In recent years there has been a question mark over Robertson’s temperament in the final stretch of regattas, but she seemed just as relaxed and composed after racing today as she did at the beginning of the regatta. In the four years since she lost out on the bronze at Atlanta, she has finally managed to find the right perspective for her racing and is a far more formidable competitor as a result.

"I’m not nearly so desperate as I was in ’96," Robertson said. "It was everything to me then; it was really important," Robertson said. "That increases the tension within. Whereas it would be good to do well here, it’s not everything in life. It’s partly a function of getting older, but I’ve also got the thing much more in perspective than I had four years ago."

After years of grinding away and pushing herself to the limit, Robertson has belatedly discovered one of the secrets of success at this level: that trying too hard is almost as bad as not trying hard enough. "The harder you go, the slower you go," she said. "You can’t somehow try harder and go faster, that’s not how it works. It’s really important that you’re chilled."

She was certainly pretty chilled today, starting reasonably well and then holding a dominant position in the fleet. She was never further back than fourth and she nipped past the Australian, Melanie Dennison, on the last run to steal an invaluable second place.

In the Lasers, Ainslie was looking exhausted after a day which saw his lead over Scheidt cut from 14 to just four points. With the next discard due after tomorrow's first race, the Briton’s lead is in peril and a good performance in the final races will be essential.

For Ainslie, this regatta has turned into a re-run of the battle he waged against Scheidt at Atlanta, which resulted in the Brazilian securing the gold on the last day.

Ainslie was making no attempt to downplay the challenge of beating the Brazilian, describing it as the hardest regatta of his life. "It’s really tough, especially with Robert sailing so well and I’ve got to match it. The conditions are very tough but you’ve just got to do as well as you can and never give up," he said.

While Scheidt added a fifth and a win to his score today, Ainslie had a more difficult time, finishing eleventh in the first race and fifth in the second. In the first, he got the wrong side of the opening leg and did well to recover to finish just outside the top ten. In the second, his powers of recovery were even more evident as he came back from a penalty imposed for excessive body movement just after the start.

The 23-year-old former world champion thought his game was up but he picked the right way up that beat and then clawed his way back through the fleet in a dying breeze. "It was one of those moments when you think it’s all going to slip away but luckily I managed to get up to fifth," Ainslie added.

In the Finn class, Iain Percy scored his second win in seven starts to keep his charge for the gold medal firmly on course. Percy was again fast on a course outside Sydney Heads and managed to reclaim the lead, even after receiving a penalty for hitting a mark. The win gave him an overall lead of eight points with four races still to sail.

With the medals to be decided on Saturday, Percy knows he has a way to go. "Unfortunately, though I had a good race, no one really slipped up, so there’s no jump in the points yet and I’ve just got to keep plugging away," he said.

In the Star class, Ian Walker and Mark Covell also remain in medal contention, after a second in today's only race, which left them second overall behind the Brazilians, Torben Grael and Marcelo Ferreira, with four races to come.

The only disappointment for Britain on the Harbour today came in men’s 470s when Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield missed out on bronze in the final race by just one point to the Argentina crew, Javier Conte and Juan de la Fuente. The Argentinians needed to finish no more than three places behind the Britons to secure the medal and they did exactly that after overtaking the Mexico boat at the very last mark of the course within sight of the finish.

Rogers was obviously disappointed after the race. "Although finishing fourth overall is a good result, if you set yourself a goal then you’ve got to achieve it," he said. "It’s a lot of work to get to this stage and that’s why we’re gutted."

EDWARD GORMAN
Sailing Correspondent
The Times