With two silver medals already secured from the SKUD and Sonar Paralympic teams on Friday (January 28), finals day at the Rolex Miami OCR proved a lucrative one for Britain with six more medals claimed by British crews in four of the Olympic classes.

The first gold medal of the day went to the World Championship silver medallists Macgregor, Lush and Macgregor in their women's match racing final against Australia's Olivia Price. 

In contrast to their quarter and semi-final bouts, the British crew took an early lead, winning the first match by a minute before pulling two ahead in the light and difficult conditions.

Price then fought back to claim the third match and looked set to draw level in the fourth after gaining a large lead on Macgregor's team, as crew Annie Lush explained.

"In the final race, in particular, we were leading but then we picked up some weed around our keel which really slowed us down and the Australians managed to get about half a leg ahead of us," she said.

"I think Olivia then picked up some weed too, so we were able to catch up a bit, but then she got stopped by some big chop from the surrounding boats and so we were able to overtake her to get the win."

The trio's last World Cup victory came in Hyeres, France, in April last year.

They are re delighted to have got the Olympic year off to a podium-topping start.

"It's a great start to 2012 for us – it doesn't feel like we've sailed particularly well last week but we held it together, pulled off some great results along the way and we've learned a huge amount which we'll take forward into our winter training," said Lush.

"You can see from the results this week just how tight the fleet has become – everyone is pushing hard so there's plenty of hard work still ahead of us."

It was a straight head-to-head between Britain's Olympic champion Goodison and Brazil's Bruno Fontes – whoever of them finished higher in the medal race would claim the gold. 


Mastering the light wind racing, Goodison secured a second in the medal race to Fontes' fifth, handing him the gold – his second in two weeks in the States after claiming victory at Key West on the Melges 32 'Red'.

"It's been nice to come and 'do' Miami," he said.

"It wasn't originally in the plan to come to this event, but after a really good week sailing in Key West it made sense to stop by here and work on some of the things I need to before the Games," Goodison explained.

After delay to their scheduled morning start due to the light winds, the men's RS:X medal race finally got underway in the early afternoon, with Dempsey heading into the race with an almost unassailable 18 point lead.

With a scorecard counting only first places, Dempsey clinched his gold in style with another race win to round off the regatta. 

After a difficult and disappointing World Championship in Perth, Dempsey was pleased to have found form this week.


"It's definitely all going to plan and it's all on track," he said. 

"It was needed, the result at this event, and I'm really looking forward to the next few months."

Dempsey's training partner Elliot Carney also made it a British 1-2 and his first World Cup regatta medal when he claimed silver after a hard-fought medal race.

Carney's fellow development squad sailors Sophie Weguelin and Sophie Ainsworth also claimed their first World Cup regatta success, joining Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark on the 470 women's podium.

Mills and Clark continued their medal-winning run with a silver to add to their growing collection, while Weguelin and Ainsworth picked up bronze thanks to an impressive win in the medal race yesterday.

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