Australia’s Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page win 470 World Championship

The pair crossed the line in the final, double-points, medal race behind France’s Nicolas Charbonnier and Baptiste Meyer Dieu, who won the Silver medal, with Sime Fantela and Igor Marenic of Croatia finishing with Bronze.

 

“We’re very happy with how today went, it’s nice to have it all official now,” said Belcher. “Mal and I are really excited about the result and happy to finish the regatta off with a good race.”

 

“Winning this World Championship is the greatest achievement of my 470 career so far,” he said. “2010 has been a great year for us, we’ve won the World Cup, now won the World Championship and hopefully will be the number one ranked crew in the world by the end of the year, we couldn’t have hoped for more.”

 

“It was a tough regatta, winning from day one probably made it a bit harder as there was a lot of pressure and expectation on us from day one but we were able to hold off the competition the whole way through,” said Belcher.

 

For Page the 2010 World Championship is his fifth 470 World Championship victory and his first since winning Gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

 

“We’re stoked with the result, we knew we had it in the bag last night and just had to go out and keep our nose clean but that’s always easier said than done,” said Page. “We had a decent start and were quite conservative off the line, making sure we ticked the box for a clean start.”

 

“We were seventh at the top mark and chipped our way back through the fleet getting up to second late in the race,” he said. “It was a good way to finish off the regatta, by no means was the whole week easy, when our backs were against the wall we came through well and took the pressure and hopefully put it onto our opponents.”

 

“It was great to head into the medal race with the regatta already won, you never know when you’re going to get an opportunity like that,” said Page. “You hope to be in with a shot at the medal race and at the start of yesterday we didn’t think we were going to be that far in front so it was a great finish to the event.”

 

“We’ve been working towards being at our best at this stage of the year and all the hard work has paid off,” he said. “We had good form in Kiel, Germany, last month and knew that we would be in the mix here so it’s a great feeling now that it all came off.”

Australian Sailing Team head coach Victor Kovalenko was impressed with how Belcher and Page stayed on top of the competition throughout the week.

 

“I’ve very proud of Mathew and Malcolm, their sailing was fantastic throughout the regatta,” said Kovalenko. “They had brilliant team work and a great understanding of each other.”

 

“At this regatta there was a lot of waiting, more than usual, waiting on the start line, waiting for the wind to arrive and then waiting for it to go away,” he said. “It was a very tough psychological marathon and Mathew and Malcolm know how to wait and took all the pressure in their stride.”

 

“Today’s medal race was great,” said Kovalenko, “We had about 15 knots of wind, lots of spectators, a couple of helicopters and an amazing atmosphere. “The boys were conservative as they didn’t want to interrupt the other crews who were fighting for Silver and Bronze so they started on port, ducked the fleet headed out to the right and sailed very well from there on.”

 

Belcher and Page teamed up at the beginning of 2009 and their hard work and dedication on and off the water has paid off in 2010, adding Sunday’s World Championship victory to the ISAF Sailing World Cup which they clinched in Germany last month.

Page commented earlier in the week that all World Championships are marathons but somehow the 2010 470 World Championship seemed even longer.

 

Day one of racing was cancelled after a lack of wind initially kept the crews on shore in the morning followed by a severe weather warning later in the day.

 

When racing finally got underway on day two Belcher and Page got off to the perfect start, winning the opening three races in light, tricky, conditions to have a four point lead at the end of the day. The pair held onto their lead on day three with two races possible before the day was cut short once again due to the extreme weather.

 

Day four was cancelled due to strong wind, but not before the crews battled their way out onto the racecourse twice throughout the day.

 

Belcher and Page extended their points gap to six after the first day of finals racing and then made their move on the penultimate day, with a 14^th, a first and a second giving them an untouchable 20 point lead going into the medal race.

 

The team will now enjoy a couple of weeks break before heading to Weymouth, England, for the seventh and final round of the ISAF Sailing World Cup at the 2012 London Olympic Games venue.