Olympics: Aussies win third sailing gold

11 Aug 2012, 4:14 pm   -   Source: Reuters
Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page celebrate their win with their coach Victor Kovalenko. (AAP)

Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page celebrate their win with their coach Victor Kovalenko. (AAP)

Australia asserted their dominance in Olympic sailing with a third gold and the expectation of a fourth as the 2012 Games regatta nears its conclusion.

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Australia asserted their dominance in Olympic sailing with a third gold and the expectation of a fourth on Saturday as the 2012 Games regatta nears its conclusion after two weeks of fluctuating winds and fortunes.

The triple world champion team of Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page bowed out as a pair in style, crowning Page's 15 years of competition in the 470 racing dinghy with his second gold medal.

"The last four years have been the most rewarding of my whole sailing career", Page said.

"This is the eighth regatta in a row that we've won. I was asked after the 2008 Games by Mat (Belcher) to continue and I said then I would retire from the 470s after these Games."

Belcher said his inspiration for competing had been watching Page win gold in 2008, and confirmed he intended to sail with a new partner at the 2016 Olympics.

Belcher and Page hailed their Australian coach Victor Kovalenko - their win on Friday gave him a sixth 470 gold medal as a coach.

It was their nation's sixth Olympic crown in five days, a mini gold rush which propelled Australia to a respectable ninth on the medals table with seven gold, 13 silver and 10 bronze.

"The team is riding on a good wave of emotions," chef de mission Nick Green said on Friday.

"It's alive and well. The feeling in the team is still very strong.

"Traditionally we win more medals in the first week but these Games are producing more in the back half of the competition."

Australia is still shy of its target of fifth, although it stands seventh in terms of overall medals won rather than just gold.

By that measure, Green said the team was performing "right up to expectations" - seventh or eighth place with around 35 medals, according to its benchmark of predictions at the end of last year.

"We are in a really good place, with some good events still to come," he said.

Australia's fourth gold was expected on Saturday in the women's match racing final after Olivia Price, Nina Curtis and Lucinda Whitty continued their almost perfect Olympic performance with a semi-final win in dramatic fashion against Finland in the Elliott 6-metre keelboat.

In dying winds over the last 100 metres of the third race of a curtailed best-of-five semi-final, the Aussies were in a photo finish for first place.

Australia's Tom Slingsby had already picked up gold in the men's laser and countrymen Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen took the 49er title.

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