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bel29 said..
Personally I thought Nico should have handled the situation more graciously. In that situation he was the elder, more experienced sailor, and is the PWA president after all. What's more, it is pretty clear that Hidde simply dropped his jibe rather than make an aggressive or dangerous maneuver. (I know that Nico didn't say otherwise, but his reaction, i.e. that Hidde should have apologized to him, implies that he felt that Hidde was at fault.) It's then even more ironic that Nico looses his qualifying position in the quarter finals of the next elimination after he drops his own jibe, thus allowing.... Hidde to qualify instead!
By far the most dangerous jibe action was by my countryman Cyril BEL250 in an earlier round, who jibed into the back of Stroosma hitting his leg, and then catapulting himself into the path and under the foil of Merceur. Cyril rightly got DSQ'd and fined EUR250 for dangerous sailing for that action.
That said, there are clearly some that are more aggressive and willing to take risks (with sometimes dangerous consequences) that don't always get pulled up on it...
In all I'm surprised given the speeds and risks being taken that there aren't more crashes and injuries -- thankfully so.
Yeah, i didn't really think Nico getting angry was justified. but with the risk taking, these guys and girls are actually racing for "sheep stations", there are risks and then there are risks. Gybing blatantly straight into someone isn't the done thing, but ducking inside into a gap that's tight but doable to overtake someone is a part of the racing.