Williams crashes out of St. Moritz championship

Current world champion Ian Williams went crashing out of the St. Moritz match race championship, whitewashed 3-0 in his best of five semi-final against New Zealander Adam Minoprio.

The 32-year old skipper of Team Pindar continually gave Minoprio a hard time in the pre-start manoeuvres only to see any advantage evaporate. “Wherever we were the wind decided to go somewhere else,” said Williams afterwards. “We felt we dominated the starts, but Adam found the wind.”

In bright sunshine, but in a cold, capricious breeze sweeping down from the hills at the northern end of the lake, Minoprio was given a relatively easy afternoon’s work. “I think we must have had someone on our side today,” he said.

Australia’s Torvar Mirsky leads France’s Philippe Presti in the other half of the draw, which will be completed Sunday morning ahead of the final\ and the play-off for third between Williams and the other beaten semi-finalist.

Making the semis at all has been quite a struggle for Williams, who again found himself at odds with the umpires. Although he won the first race against Sebastien Col of France after having to take a penalty turn, he had the point taken away because of a collision on the second upwind leg.

So Williams had to win three more to go through. Clearly sailing the boat faster than his rival, this he duly achieved as another Frenchman, Philippe Presti knocked out Italy’s Francesco Bruni, with double Olympic silver medallist and Team New Zealand coach handling the mainsail.

Minoprio dispatched the veteran Australian Peter Gilmour to take the fourth slot while a top score in round robin had given Mirsky an automatic semi-final place.

Williams now goes to Aarhuis, Denmark hoping that having the same team as in Switzerland he can build on improving performance and repeat the win if last year. In terms of the overall championship: “We finished ahead of two of the people we are fighting with, so in the overall scheme of things, it was neutral.”