Mills and McIntyre team up for 470 World Championships title
by Anisha Walkerley / RYA on 7 Jul 2017
Hannah Mills and Eilidh McIntyre – 470 World Championships Pedro Martinez / Sailing Energy / World Sailing
Buoyed by their victorious outing as a scratch pair at last month’s World Cup Final in Santander, Rio gold medallist Hannah Mills and Eilidh McIntyre have teamed up again for a shot at World Championship success in Greece next week (10-15 July).
The Olympic Champion Mills has been trying her hand in the 49erFX class this season, but returned to the familiar 470 event, in which she won Rio gold alongside Saskia Clark, to race at the Spanish World Cup finale in June.
She will line up with McIntyre once more when the six-day World Championship event gets underway off the port city of Thessaloniki on Monday, where they will be among the 61 women’s crews in the hunt for the world title.
'It's going to be hard,' Mills admitted, anticipating a light wind event at the Aegean venue.
'In lighter winds it takes a while to get your feel back and I have been out [of the 470] for so long.'
But the 29-year-old is nonetheless looking forward to getting back on the racetrack alongside McIntyre - 23 and a World Cup and European Championship medallist – with the duo one of three female British Sailing Team crews to feature in the event line up.
World number four pairing Amy Seabright and Anna Carpenter have narrowly missed out on the podium spots at two of their recent events, finishing fourth at April’s World Cup Hyeres and at the 470 European Championships in May, while Jess Lavery and Flora Stewart will have their sights on the ten-boat medal race positions having come close at their previous two regattas.
Martin Wrigley and James Taylor, sixth at the World Cup Final at Santander, are the sole British entrants in the 77-boat 470 Men’s division.
Racing at the 470 World Championships gets underway on Monday 10 July, with an 11-race opening series scheduled ahead of a double points medal race for the top ten boats in each fleet on Saturday 15 July.
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