Selection schmelection
It looks like the next few months will be a bit interesting in
terms of selections for upcoming events.
Nigel and I surprised ourselves and finished 4th in the short
Australian 49er Champs over the last week. We raced pretty
consistently to win a race in the strong winds, and beat the
full-time teams from Japan, and Melbourne along with the 18′ World
Champions Euan & Seve. You can’t draw much from the event
really, but we’ll take the results as they come.
The Kiwis Olympic aspriationalists were 1st. Weekenders Clynton & Tai were 2nd, with
SailMelbourne winners Nathan & Ben in 3rd.
So now we’ve got the interesting situation whereby, according to
the Yachting Australia selection criteria Clynton & Tai should
be nominated for the ISAF World Sailing Games
in Austria as well as the 2006 Olympic test-event in Qingdao. Since
Clynton is a South African national and an Australian resident, I’m
not 100% confident they’ll get the nod to go (any excuse will do?).
If they do get the spot - Clynton has mentioned they may not take
it up, in either case Nathan & Ben would be next in line.
The interesting thing is there is a 2nd provisional spot for each
event dependent on entries. If Clynton is out and the 2nd spot is
up, technically we should be next in line to get it.
But… I have a sneaking suspicion that there’s no way in hell we
will. Though it would be funny…
There was also various discussions during the 49ers about the
standard of the fleet in Australia… with a fair amount of
speculation on where they’d end up on the World scale. For
reference, the Japanese (6th) were apparently Athens Olympic bronze
medallists in the 470, as well as finishing 41st in the last 49er
Worlds in Moscow. The Kiwis (1st) were in the top few in the Moscow
Worlds Bronze fleet - about 50th. That means the standard was
probably mid-Silver. Not that flash…. and a long way to go before
the podium.
Interesting to note that the Japanese were 41st in Moscow and 15th
Nation… and there’s 19 or so country spots up for grabs in the
next Olympics.
In other news - and completely unrelated to the 49ers - we’ve got
the 18′ Skiff JJ Giltinan series, for which we have to qualify in
the top 15 at the Australian Championship. After our broken
spinnaker pole yesterday, which seems to have shat itself in the
sun, we’re in 15th (from 7th). We can’t afford to have another DNF
in this series if we’re to make the cut.
And of course there’s the flickr
photos to go with the 49er event.
