The New Zealand sailing team recently finished the ISAF Sailing World Cup Hyeres, in France successfully with 4 medals in their kitty, which included 2 gold medals, 2 silver medals, while two ace sailors finished just behind the 4th position in the competition. The overall race went quite well for them, which the victories for the kiwis came from Jo Aleh, Blair Tuke(49er), Polly Powrie (Women’s 470) and Peter Burling, who were medalists in the London Olympics for New Zealand. Both Polly Powrie and Jo Aleh have bagged gold medals back to back at the ISAF Sailing World Cup Palma during early april, followed by Hyeres. Powrie commented that as a team they have put up a great show and she is much happy that they are heading home after this.
The Silver medal was bagged by Andy Maloney in the Laser, post quite a close race for the medal with Australian Tom Burton. The other Kiwi crew who won the silver in Hyeres is Alexandra Maloney in the 49erFX class. Tuke and Burling were quite dominant throughout the week in the competition, a rounded off the race quite spectacularly is an emphatic way with 3 great races in the finale, including an opening gun. Strikingly, out of the top ten ones to finish in Hyeres, eight were from team New Zealand. This was another feather in the cap for the New Zealand sailing team.
Since the ISAF Sailing World Cup Palma Regatta, in April 2014, this year’s race was quite an improvement, since in the previous race the NZL Team hauled only 2 gold medals (49er and Women’s 470) while only 5 finished in the top 10. These spectacular results have made the New Zealand sailing team one of the top performers at the regatta, as they bagged the equal number of Medals as Poland and Australia.