Sailor Ed Wright admits winning the medal race at the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Melbourne was the icing on the cake as he confirmed his spot in next year's Abu Dhabi final.
Wright and Alison Young were the only Brits who made the trip to Australia for the opening event of the 2015 World Cup series and the duo both picked up gold medals in the Finn and Laser Radial events respectively.
Wright led the fleet from day one and did not finish any race outside the top two to clinch the gold, with nearest challenger Oli Tweddell of Australia unable to halt his progress in Sunday’s final medal race.
The victory handed Wright, bronze medallist at the 2014 World Championships in Santander, maximum ranking points towards qualification for future World Cups next year as well as early confirmation of his place at the 2015 World Cup Final in Abu Dhabi next October.
“Oli was the only threat I had to cover. I didn’t care about winning the medal race, but I did,” said Wright.
“The first upwind was really lovely with breeze up to 20 knots, then it dropped out. I was quite upset because when we were out there practising before the start the downwind conditions were epic.
“In the race I managed to hold onto the lead and cover Oli quite tightly on the second beat, then pulled away in some nice waves.”
Young meanwhile was also comfortable in victory with fourth place in the medal race enough to seal overall victory ahead of Belarus' Tatiana Drozdovskaya.
“It was quite a tricky medal race we had there,” Young said.
“It was pretty light beforehand and then the breeze pumped in and there were pretty big gains on the right hand side. It was quite tense on the first beat.” © Sportsbeat 2014