Mixed start for Hannah's gold quest (From Gazette)

Mixed start for Hannah's gold quest

11:07am Monday 8th September 2008 in Sailing By Simon Spurgeon

Hannah Stodel began her quest for Paralympic glory in unspectacular fashion, but battled back in the second of the opening day’s races in the Sonar Class of the sailing.

The Mersea sailor, together with skipper John Robertson and Stephen Thomas, are Great Britain’s representatives in the three-person keelboat event and were sitting in overall sixth-place after the first day’s competition at the Games’ sailing venue of Qingdao.

Two races of the ten-race series were held on the opening day of the contest, with a final medal race and ceremony being held on Saturday.

Hopes of a medal are high for the British trio, having come into the Paralympics with a series of strong showings at warm-up regattas this year, but their Games made a shaky start as they could only muster a ninth-place finish in the first race.

However, Stodel, Robertson and Thomas, fought straight back in their next outing and got back to form with a third place to bump them up the overall standings into the top six.

In the opening race, the British trio were never really on the pace and turned at the first mark in fifth position, before falling back to eighth at the second and tenth at the third.

They recovered slightly to gain a place in the final stretch, which they held into the finish, but were a full two minutes 33 seconds behind the lead boat of America’s Rick Doerr.

It was an even worse start to the second race for the British boat as they were back in 14th place at the first mark, however, their class showed as they began their move through the field, placing them 12th at the second mark, fourth at the third and then third by the finishing line.

The end came just too soon for Stodel, Robertson and Thomas, though, and they were 19 seconds behind the winner, Bruno Jourdren of France.

Races three and four are due to be held tomorrow in Qingdao when the British trio will resume their hunt for gold glory.