Rolex OCR Miami 2010 - Belcher and Page, 470 class, inside top 10

3:03 AM Wed 27 Jan 2010 GMT

'Belcher and Page in Miami for the Rolex OCR 2010 - (Photo: Victor Kovalenko)' Yachting Australia

The Australian Sailing Team's Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page currently sit in eighth position after the opening three races in the 470 men's class at round two of the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Miami.

The pair had a mixed day, beginning their regatta with a strong third placed finish, followed by a 19th and 10th to leave them just one point behind the seventh placed Great Britain crew and only 10 off third position.

'Today the wind was light to medium and pretty tricky,' said Page. 'There were big shifts from left to right all day which is very Miami, making it hard to get it right and hard on the brain at the end of the day.'

'Overall we had an up and down day on the water,' said Page. 'In the first race we had a good start and got the first shift which made a big difference but then in the final two races we had some good opportunities but didn't capitalise on them as well as we should have.'

The Australian pair currently lead the ISAF Sailing World Cup after the opening round in Melbourne last month and are enjoying racing against an extremely strong fleet in Miami.

'The competition here is hot,' said Belcher. 'There are Olympic medalists, past and current World Champions, the current top 20 minus a few, the majority of whom have spent the most part of the last month training over here and were all ready to race today.'

'This regatta will be a great litmus test to see where we sit after our summer of training at home,' he said.

Belcher and Page have another three races to contest on Wednesday with two races scheduled for Thursday, two for Friday and the medal race featuring the top ten boats on Saturday.

'The forecast is for the same conditions for the rest of the week, things might change a bit for the medal race day but we'll just go out and do it all again each day and keep working away,' said Page.

www.australiansailingteam.com.au

by Yachting Australia

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Rolex OCR Miami 2010 - Belcher and Page, 470 class, inside top 10

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