Exeter Sailors Bring Back Gold

The combined efforts of Exeter’s 19 entrants saw the team finish in first place overall across the two day competition after winning the Laser 2 class, coming second in the Firefly class and finishing sixth in the Handicap competition.

Perfect racing conditions over the weekend helped Tom Mallindine and Suzy Russell to secure Exeter’s first BUCS Gold of the year in the Laser 2 class. Tim Saxton and Nicola Groves excelled in finishing in second place in the Firefly fleet. In an extremely competitive Handicap fleet, James Rusden and Dan Shieber finished in 6th position out of 51 entries.
 
Exeter’s sailors train at the University’s Sports Park where they receive specialised Sports Science and Strength & Conditioning support from the University’s High Performance Unit. Tom Mallindine, Tim Saxton and Dan Shieber are part of the University’s renowned Sports Scholarship Scheme.

Tom, who is a third year Economics and Finance student, said “Winning the fleet racing is a massive boost for me. It’s always great to represent Exeter and I’m really pleased to have contributed to this success.”
 
Nick Beasant, Exeter's Assistant Director of Sport (Performance and Competitions) was delighted by Exeter’s dominance in the competition.  He said, “Congratulations to the whole team for a fantastic result. Behind the scenes a lot of effort has gone into the development of sailing at Exeter and as a University we have been working increasingly closely with the Royal Yachting Association in recent years to become a destination University for their most talented age group sailors; it’s therefore encouraging to see us achieving such positive results in the sport. We now have our sights set on continuing our success in sailing in the BUCS Team Racing championships over Easter.”