London Olympics 2012 - Overview of the day’s racing

by David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor on 10 Aug 2012 Today should be an interesting day of racing on the Nothe course (and possibly on the Portland Harbor course, as well) today, just off of the Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy, situated in here in Portland, UK. Two medal races and the Women’s Match Racing (WMR) semifinals are all expected to unfurl, provided that the wind gods cooperate and deliver the goods.

Due to a virtually zero-air day yesterday, the Men’s 470 medal race has been rescheduled for today, at 1200 hours, on the spectator-friendly Nothe course. Weather forecasts are calling for five to ten knots out of the east. This breeze is expected to fill-in at roughly 1100 hours, local time, and last until roughly 1300 hours. Fortunately, the breeze is expected to stay stronger on the Portland Harbor course, so this could be a fallback racetrack, should the Nothe prove to be a pressure vacuum.

Currently, the battle for Gold and Silver in the Men’s 470 class is a tussle between the Brits and the Aussies, with the Bronze medal contest coming down to the Italians and the Argentinean-flagged teams, as well as a few other teams who could possibly sneak in with Bronze, depending on the medal-race results.

Interestingly, according to Olympic rules, if the weather gods don’t deliver a proper breeze today and the racing is cancelled, the entire Men’s 470 medal race will also be cancelled. Hopefully this will not happen!

The Women’s 470 class is expected to conduct their medal race on the Nothe course today, just after the Men’s 470 contest gets underway. The battle for Gold and Silver is between the Kiwis and the Brits, with the tussle for Bronze being open to more teams. Should racing be cancelled today, the Women’s 470-medal race will be rescheduled for tomorrow.

Later today, at 1430 hours, the WMR class will take to the Nothe course (or possibly the Portland Harbor course) for their semifinal rounds. Interestingly, due to yesterday’s cancellations, there will not be a sail-off between teams for the fifth- through eighth-place positions. Instead, these will be places will determined by the WMR’s point counts, coming into today’s racing.

Please stand by for more news, quotes from the winning sailors and great photo-galleries, as the day unfurls.