Ainslie back into Semaine Olympique Française Finn lead

by Lindsey Bell on 27 Apr 2011 Ben Ainslie made the best of the day’s tough conditions at the fourth leg of the ISAF Sailing World Cup series,
the Semaine Olympique Française in Hyeres on Tuesday (26 April), resuming the lead in the Finn class by nine points heading into the second half of the regatta.

Day three of this French Olympic Sailing Week was a test of patience for both competitors and officials, with prohibitively light winds preventing any racing from getting underway until 1400hrs.

When it finally did, Ainslie proved the man to beat in the heavyweight Finn class, winning both his races, including an early evening race in the shifting and dying wind breeze, to reclaim the top spot of the leaderboard heading into the final gold fleet series on Wednesday.

'It was a really tricky day – the wind was all over the place and there were lots of place changes in all of the races, but I was happy to get through with two good races in the end considering everything that went on,' the triple Olympic gold medallist explained.

'The wind was dying out quite rapidly [in the second race] and it was very hard for everyone to try and work out the shifts and which way the wind would die off. All the fleets came together for the last run with the way the two fleets worked out with the courses so it was pretty tricky. I think everyone found it hard out there but I managed to make something out of the day which was good.'

Able to discard his seventh place finish in race three, the 34-year-old Ainslie now has an enviable scoresheet heading into the gold fleet, counting four race wins and a second.

'So far it’s been good – it’ll be good to be racing against all of the top guys [in the gold fleet]. The fleet racing is quite different for us in the Finn, we’re not used to it and I’m not sure anyone particularly likes it that much, but at the same time it’s good to have such a large number of boats here racing.

'The gold fleet will mean all of the top sailors racing against each other and I’ll need to have two good days heading into hopefully the medal race.'

World Champion Ed Wright has pulled himself into the podium positions with 3,6 from his two races today moving him into third overall, while Giles Scott’s 9,16 has seen him drop to fourth, just one point behind Wright.

A steady third day for Dylan Fletcher and Alain Sign sees them remain in pole position in the 49er class, with an 11 point lead over the second-placed Danish boat with Skandia Team GBR teammates Paul Brotherton and Mark Asquith up to fifth, while Alexandra Rickham and Niki Birrell maintain their unbeaten run of race wins in the Paralympic SKUD fleet, adding two more bullets to their scorecard today. The Development team of Alex Hovden and Kate Mannerings are second overall.

Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor, already assured of a place in the women’s match racing quarter-finals, won all three of their gold group round robin matches today against Claire Leroy (FRA), Ekaterina Skudina (RUS) and Tamara Echeyogan (ESP), while Megan Pascoe is up to second overall in the 2.4mR Paralympic class.

Skandia Team GBR has three 470 women’s teams currently in the top ten positions heading into the second half of the week, with Penny Clark-Katrina Hughes in third, Hannah Mills-Saskia Clark in fourth and the development squad team of Sophie Weguelin-Sophie Ainsworth in eighth, while in the 470 men’s event, a 17th in the only race of the day sees Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell drop just outside of the medal race spots.

Bryony Shaw improved one spot to sixth overall, with a sixth from her only race of the day, while the Paralympic Sonar trio of John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Steve Thomas are fifth.

Alison Young is tenth overall in the Laser Radial with Charlotte Dobson improving to 17th while Paul Goodison and Nick Thompson are 24th and 28th respectively in the Laser event.

Racing at the French Olympic Sailing Week continues through until Friday 29 April.

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