7:48am Monday 15th September 2008
By Simon Spurgeon
There was Paralympic disappointment for Mersea sailor Hannah Stodel as she ended the 2008 Games in exactly the same position as she did at the Athens Games four years ago.
Stodel, together with skipper John Robertson and Stephen Thomas, headed into the Sonar Class regatta as one of the hot gold medal favourites, but a disappointing run of results left them down in sixth position overall.
The British Sonar three-person keelboat crew went into the final day of racing 12 points off the podium in eighth place.
They pulled out all the stops in their final two races to finish second in race ten before rounding off their campaign with a hard-earned race 11 victory.
But although their last day effort saw them considerably cut the gap on the boats ahead of them in the overall standings it was not enough to force their way on to the podium and they finished on 41 points, just five points off a medal.
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