Louis Tilly and Bridget Conrad: Welcome to the All-Stars!
The Australian season is in full swing, with last weekend marking a major occasion in the calendar.
The Australian Foiling Sprint Championship delivered two days of epic sprint racing. The Aussies lead the way with the sprint formats, having held dedicated sprint events at national and state level since 2024. The latest edition formed the Australian athlete qualification for the recently-announced WASZP All-Stars invitational in Pensacola, where the very best WASZP sailors from around the world will do battle in a champion-of-champions format.
Louis Tilly has consistently been at the top of the table Down Under, but at the Aussie Sprints, his spot at the All-Stars was by no means safe. Conall Green came out firing, winning the first race and bagging a handful of first and second scores. Will Troop also laid down a claim, notching up a couple of bullets and a few second places, with the trio regularly exchanging positions on the podium. Tilly would know that if he didn’t win the race, Green or Troop would swoop in and take it, which brought the series down to the wire. In the end, with the two discards coming in, Tilly was the only athlete to have all counters in the top three, sealing victory by three points. Green came in second and Troop, third.
Bridget Conrad is an experienced and formidable competitor in the women’s fleet and would have been determined to lock in her All-Stars spot. Having missed out on the opportunity to go to Weymouth earlier in the year for the record-breaking WASZP Games and qualify through the Women’s Sprint Champs, Conrad’s All-Stars hopes would hinge on the Aussie Sprints. Conrad went in as the bookies’ favourite, racing for the first time on the 7.5 sail, but was challenged throughout by Harriet George, who alongside fellow Brit Alice Pope, has switched the English winter for a summer of WASZP racing Down Under. George and Conrad traded blows throughout the series, with Conrad, like Tilly, securing the win by three points.
Tilly and Conrad will be locked and loaded for Pensacola where they are sure to challenge for the lead. Now in the peak of their racing season, expect them to be race fit and ultra sharp when they hit the start line in Florida on 17 March!
Tilly, Green, Troop and Conrad
Different event – same champs. Straight after the Aussie Sprints, the Australian class held the Victorian State Champs. It was business as usual for Louis Tilly, Conall Green and Will Troop, who took the podium as they had done the previous event, with Bridget Conrad again taking out the women’s division. The Super Master division was as hotly contested as the overall podium between Jervis Tilly and Andrew McDougall: training partners, friends, rivals. On both occasions, Tilly wound up on top by a single place.
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