The final day of the ISAF Sailing World Cup has proven to be a golden one for the Australian Sailing Team with Tom Slingsby winning Gold in the Laser class while Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen claimed first in the 49ers in an action packed medal race.

Slingsby headed into the deciding medal race with a 16 point lead over second placed Nick Thompson of Great Britain knowing that he would have to keep his eye on his competitor to take the Gold medal.

“The medal race was really tricky, you had to really back yourself on what side you wanted to go which forced me to be a bit indecisive because I wanted to follow my competitors who were close to me on points and also sail my own race,” Slingsby said.

“I ended up doing a bit of a mix and came home second by about a boat length to Paul Goodison which was a great result.”

The route to the Gold medal wasn’t as straightforward for Outteridge and Jensen who had to put two boats between themselves and the first placed Austrians and hold off the third placed New Zealanders.

“We started the medal race off with a bit of match racing between us and the Austrians in the pre-start,” Outteridge said.

“We started on port and around the first mark the Austrians were first, we were second and the Kiwis third so we had a bit on to put boats between us and Austria. It stayed that way for a bit then we hit the lead and in the bottom mark for the second time we managed to get a rule infringement on the Austrians and they ended up capsizing which definitely put two boats between us and them.”

“From then on all we had to do was stay in front of the Kiwis which we did, making it a very successful event for us, a bit stressful at times and there was a little bit of luck in there for us.”

“At first I didn’t realise that the Austrians went over, we went around the mark and I knew they were really close to us and then when I turned around and saw them capsized it was like alright we just had to stay ahead of the Kiwis and we’ve got it in the bag.”