Tobin claims bronze at world champs

JP Tobin. Photo / Greg Bowker

Not long ago, JP Tobin had a moon boot strapped to his foot. Now he has a world championships bronze medal draped around his neck.

The Kiwi boardsailor finished third at the RS:X world championships in Spain overnight (NZT) and will now turn his attentions to collecting an Olympic medal in August.

The final day of racing, the medal race which accrues double points, was abandoned overnight as strong winds up to 50 knots continued to buffet Cadiz. It was the second day in a row racing was canned and the third out of seven.

Placings could have altered significantly with just eight points separating the top five sailors. Frenchman Julien Bontemps claimed gold with Britain's Nick Dempsey second. Tobin finished just 0.6 points ahead of defending world champion and training partner Dorian van Rijsselberghe of the Netherlands.

Tobin found some good form throughout the regatta. Although he didn't win a race, he finished in the top five in all of the 10 races except for his discard of 13th in race two.

It was a good return for the 35-year-old, who recently had foot surgery to remove fish spikes from his foot. Remarkably, he finished fifth at last year's sailing world championships, which doubled as the Olympic trials, even though the fish spikes became embedded in his foot a day before competition began.

His results have gone a long way to vindicating his selection for the Olympic team ahead of defending Olympic champion Tom Ashley, who finished 29th at the world championships in Spain.

Olympic hopeful Natalia Kosinska finished 19th in the women's fleet and will have an agonising wait to discover whether she will be added to the Olympic squad. New Zealand have qualified a women's RS:X spot at the Olympics but the selectors wanted to be convinced to take Kosinska - the New Zealand Olympic Committee require athletes to be capable of top-16 finishes at the Games.