THEY say good things come in threes – champion sailor Megan Pascoe certainly hopes so.
The 33-year-old will be heading to Florida in November to defend the International 2.4mR class world title that she won in Italy at the end of last year.
And success this autumn at the beautiful Davis Island resort in Tampa would mean a hat-trick of world titles for the dedicated disabled sailor who plys her trade at the thriving Frensham Pond Sailing Club, near Farnham.
Pascoe, who has hemiplegic cerebral palsy, which affects muscle movement, was first crowned world champion in Tasmania, off the south-east coast of the Australian mainland, in 2016 before doubling up in Genoa last November after a winner-takes-all duel with Finnish sailor Marko Dahlberg.
“In 2016 I won with a day to spare, but this time it went down to the last day,” she said of her Italian success.
“It was just me and the Finnish guy and it basically came down to whoever won the penultimate race would win the title.
“It started to hit me when you walk onto the podium for the minor prizes, but to walk on there as world champion, you want to go and relive that feeling again. It’s the biggest buzz you could ever get.”
And she added: “I didn’t sleep that night. I once got invited round by one of my Swedish mates and he had just won the worlds and he took me straight upstairs to his trophy room. He was so proud. So to finally get your hands on that trophy when you have been trying for ten or 15 years is just amazing.
“You always aim for the top and there’s always a chance of it happening, but there are so many amazing sailors out there that it is not an easy thing to do.”
Inclement weather, which produced big waves, reduced the number of races from ten to seven in Italy, with all sailors able to discard their worst score, and three race wins and three second places over the four days of fierce competition resulted in world joy for Pascoe, who to this day is still the only Brit and the only woman to win the 2.4mR class world title.
“We all race on a completely equal basis so it doesn’t really matter what age you are, what weight you are and your gender doesn’t matter, and it’s great because disability doesn’t matter either,” she said, explaining that the 2.4mR boat is used by both disabled and able-bodied sailors.
But Pascoe, who was brought up in Ardingly, West Sussex, but now lives in Bordon and has been racing the 2.4mR class since she was 14, said Genoa was tough.
“It was probably the hardest four days’ racing that I have had in a long time,” she said.
“The first day we had three races which made it a long day, and then you have to go and do it all again the next day.
“I was expecting maybe top four or top five and if I came home with that I would have been happy. I came second the year before, so I knew it was there, but you look at the guys that are there and know it’s going to be tough. I had quite a good lead up in the year but I hadn’t competed against the top guys, so I wasn’t entirely sure how it was going to go. Things just went my way.”
So now it’s back to Frensham Pond for the club’s rear commodore and a busy summer on and off the water before setting sail for Florida and a tilt at a third world title in November.
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