21st January 2010

British sailors Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson added the Star class world title to their Olympic crown with victory in Rio de Janeiro.

The pair, who won the two-man keelboat class at the 2008 Beijing Games, dominated the Star worlds on the waters of the 2016 Games in Brazil.

Leading going into the sixth and final race, the Britons covered the Swiss, the only team that could topple them.
Both boats came well down the pack but the Britons did enough for victory.

The 33-year-old Englishmen scored a first, two seconds and a fourth, with a worst finish of 11th discarded, for a total of nine points going into the final race on Guanabara Bay, crossing the line 16th.

The Swiss pair of Flavio Marazzi and Enrico de Maria, who trailed the Britons by eight points ahead of the last day, came 12th in the light winds to finish 11 points adrift in silver on Thursday.

Brazilians Torben Grael, the world sailor of the year in 20009, and Marcelo Ferreira came third in race six to claim the bronze medal. Percy, who was also Star world champion in 2002, admitted that the shifting winds had made for a challenging finale among the 81-boat fleet.

"We started off chasing Mazzari to the unfavoured end of the course, but when the wind shifted 40 degrees to the left it then became the favoured end of the course and we had managed to push them into a good position," he said.

"We managed to catch up so we were quite close to him in the end and then we were able to relax and enjoy the last lap of the course knowing we were world champions.

"Boat speed is 90% down to the crew and Andrew really made it easy for me this week enabling me to point the boat in any direction and go faster than anyone else."
Simpson added: "It's not been an easy week and we made some mistakes - it's a good reminder for us we've got some work to do to be the best for 2012 but we're really chuffed to have won."

Percy and Simpson were world bronze medallists in 2007, while Percy also won Olympic gold in the single-handed Finn class in the Sydney Games of 2000.

British team-mates John Gimson and Ed Greig finished the regatta in 41st place.

The next Star World Championships will be in December 2011 in Fremantle, Australia.

Overall results after six races (discarding the worst result):

1. Iain Percy/Andrew Simpson (GBR) - 20 (2+11+2+1+4+16)
2. Flavio Marazzi/Enrico De Maria (SUI) - 29 (30+1+6+4+6+12)
3. Torben Grael/Marcelo Ferreira (BRA) - 39 (5+25+21+7+3+3)
4. Lars Grael/Ronald Seifert (BRA) - 44 (35+15+12+10+2+5)
5. Alan Adler/Guilherme de Almeida (BRA) - 44 (6+5+11+13+9+74)
6. Diego Negri/Fernando Colaninno (ITA) - 52 (23+18+5+6+13+10)
7. Fredrik Loof/John Tillander (SWE) - 52 (8+9+18+19+11+6)
8. Eivind Melleby/Petter Pedersen (NOR) - 54 (9+10+4+16+16+15)
9. Robert Scheidt/Bruno Prada (BRA) - 64 (3+19+50+5+5+32)
10. Johannes Babendererde/Timo Jacobs (GER) - 66 (1+8+39+8+15+34)