Mills and Clark secure 470 golden double in Santander
British sailors secured a golden double at the Santander City Trophy on Saturday (14 September), with Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark adding the 470 women's title to the 470 men's crown secured day early by Luke Patience and Joe Glanfield on Friday.
Sophie Weguelin and Eilidh McIntyre made it a second step on the podium in the women's double-handed class, finishing second in the medal race behind their teammates to take bronze at this test regatta for the 2014 World Championships.
Patience and Glanfield had already amassed enough points to sail a pressure-free medal race on Saturday, and drew a line under the regatta with a second place in the ten-boat medal race, but the fight for gold was very much on in the women's division.
The 2012 silver medallists Mills and Clark, competing in just their second event after a post-Olympic break, got the better of the Austrian series leaders on the second lap of their ten-boat double points medal race to take the race victory and with it the regatta title.
"The plan was to stick quite close to the Austrians in the pre-start, get to the windward mark and see where we were and what needed to be done," explained the 34-year-old Clark.
"We were actually just a bit behind the Austrians at that point in time, so we just kept our options open for the next upwind. We had an opportunity to get across them and actually they made a big loss so that gave us the boats between us that we needed."
"It's always nice to win an event - especially an international one," added Mills.
"To be honest, Sas and I are just finding our rhythm again really. It's taking a bit longer than we'd have hoped it would take, but definitely the last part of this week we've really felt like we've made steps forward again in getting back towards where we were last summer, so it's been a really positive event for us regardless of the outcome."
With the competition season now coming to an end, the 25-year-old Cardiff sailor feels there are plenty more gains to be made over their winter training period.
"We've got a good couple of months now to actually get some training in and really establish our equipment for next year and where we want to go with that, but also get our teamwork back up to where it was last summer. We're definitely on a good route for that now and we just need to keep it going over the winter."
For Weguelin and McIntyre, their bronze medal rounds off a successful first season for the new team, which includes two World Cup podium finishes and a European Championship bronze.
"It's been a great event - we're really happy to have been out here and have the chance to race in these waters," the 24-year-old Weguelin explained. "We're really pleased to come away with a bronze medal.
"Next year's going to be really exciting," added McIntyre.
"I just think [as a team] we have a really good dynamic and we understand each other quite well. We've got quite a good feel of the boat so we work together really nicely and have a really good conversation and flow as we're sailing along. And we have fun, which is pretty key!"
There'll be more medal race action for the British Sailing Team on Sunday's final day of this Santander City Trophy, with Nick Thompson assured of a podium finish in the Laser division.
The points couldn't be closer, with the three-time World Championship medallist in a three-way tussle for gold with Sweden's Jesper Stalheim and Guatemala's Juan Ignacio Maegli with the medals to be determined by their finishing order tomorrow.
Ben Saxton and Hannah Diamond will head into the final Nacra 17 medal race in equal first with Austria's Thomas Zajac and Tanya Frank, with fellow British Sailing Team crews Rupert White-Nikki Boniface, Lucy Macgregor-Tim Carter and Pippa Wilson-John Gimson occupying the third to fifth places in the multihull leaderboard with one day to go.
In the windsurfing events, Bryony Shaw and Nick Dempsey have both advanced into the podium positions each with a first and a second from their two RS:X races today. Shaw is in overall second, 12 points behind series leader Charline Picon, while Dempsey is third, four points behind silver, and four points from fourth.
Chloe Martin picked up another race win and a ninth to head into the Laser Radial medal race in bronze medal position, with Hannah Snellgrove also qualifying in seventh.
