Sailing duo Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page (both AIS scholarship holders) have won the 470 World Championship in The Netherlands, leading the regatta from start to finish to win the Gold medal by 21 points.

Belcher and Page headed into the medal race with an unbeatable 20 point lead but didn’t take their foot off the accelerator finishing second and confirming their first World Championship victory as a team.

“We’re very happy with how these world championships went, it’s nice to have it all official now,” Belcher 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.”

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.

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,” Kovalenko said.

“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.”

“It was a very tough psychological marathon and Mathew and Malcolm know how to wait and took all the pressure in their stride.”

Belcher and Page 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.