Sailing: Bronzes for 'rainbow girl' and McIntosh

Barbara Kendall and fellow boardsailor Aaron McIntosh gave New Zealand cause for a double celebration on Sunday with bronze medals at the Olympic Games regatta.

Kendall was already assured of bronze before the final afternoon of racing in the Mistral classes, while McIntosh clinched his podium finish with placings of third and fourth for his best day of the regatta.

With one race left to sail in her event, Kendall was out of the running for the gold. But she was still in contention for silver, needing to cross first and to have second-placed Italian Alessandra Sensini finish no better than fourth.

However, Sensini won what turned out to be a match race against overnight leader Amelie Lux to pip the German for the title on a countback.

Kendall crossed the finish line third to complete a full set of medals from the past three Olympics, including gold from Barcelona in 1992 and silver from Atlanta four years ago.

She said she gave it a real go on another day of light winds on Sydney harbour, but admitted that motivation might have waned just a little.

``When you know you can't win gold, you lose a little of your fire,'' she said.

``It wasn't as if I gave up. I knew the Italian and the German girl would be going off and I was trying really hard. But it's difficult to have that little bit extra you sometimes need to really push through.''

Kendall said she was disappointed ``for five minutes'' on Friday when she knew she could not win the title, but to have a medal of every colour now was ``pretty awesome''.

``As my Dad said to me on the telephone: `You're not the golden girl any more, you're the rainbow girl'.''

Kendall, who stayed out on the water to cheer McIntosh on, described the regatta as possibly the hardest she had sailed, with the conditions not what had been expected.

Whereas she won the pre-Olympics 12 months ago in more variable weather, the winds over the past week had been predominantly light, favouring Sensini and the largely unheralded Lux.

It also led to the remarkable phenomenon of Sensini, Lux and Kendall filling the top three places in seven of the 11 races, a dominance that the New Zealander said she had not seen before.

``It's pretty amazing to get to the end of the regatta and think you've sailed the best you could and still get beaten,'' she said.

``I couldn't have asked for anything more and I still didn't win, so it was just not meant to be. You just have to be philosophical about it. This is the Olympics and you can't control the weather, so I'm pretty happy at the end of the day.''

Kendall said she intended to enjoy the rest of the Sydney Games, watch other events and support fellow New Zealand competitors.

As for whether there might be another Olympic campaign in her, the 33-year-old Aucklander said: ``I would never say never''.

``I'm definitely going to take a break because we've been going so hard now for three years.

``But I'm a competitive person and I love windsurfing and the Olympics is the ultimate goal.''

Sensini, the world and European champion and bronze medallist at Atlanta, said she could not believe she had won when she crossed the finish line.

``I thought it was a dream and I had to ask my coach if it was really true,'' she said.

While she was confident of victory, she was ```very scared'' of the threat posed by Kendall's experience - ``I always had an eye on her'' -- while Lux was always one to watch for because the German had sailed so well this week.

In the women's 470, Cantabrians Melinda Henshaw and Jenny Egnot dropped two places to fifth overall in the 19-boat fleet after a fifth and a last, which they were able to discard.

The men's 470 crew of Simon Cooke and Peter Nicholas remained eighth overall after a 15th and a third, the latter result being the best of their regatta so far.

In the Solings, the last three places in the quarterfinal pool of match races beginning on Tuesday were decided.

Denmark, Germany and Russia qualified to join Norway, the New Zealand crew of Rod Davis, Don Cowie and Alan Smith, and the Netherlands, in a round robin from which the top four teams will be found.

However, the American crew coached by former Team New Zealand skipper and Olympic Finn class gold medallist Russell Coutts were eliminated after finishing bottom of the six teams in the second match racing round.

- NZPA