Olympic Sailing Qingdao - Day 7 - Racing completed

by Sail-World.com/uk on 15 Aug 2008
After a long wait under the postponement flag, all the scheduled classes got afloat including th opening day for the Tornado and Star events, on Friday, day 7 of the Olympic regatta in Qingdao.

The British Yngling trio, Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson finished fifth in their single race today and keep their overall lead going into the Medal Race Saturday. The race was won by their closest rivals for Gold, the Dutch team of Mandy Mulder, Annemieke Bes and Merel Witteveen.

In the Finn, Ben Ainslie finished second behind Spain's Rafa Trujillo, but more importantly the American, Zach Railey finished 19th and Ainslie now has a 22 point lead for Saturday's Medal Race. In third place overall is Daniel Birgmark of Sweden.

Better day for Paul Goodison in the Laser who won his single race and goes into first overall. Overnight leader Diego Romero of Italy had a 36 and dropped to eighth overall. Second today and overall is Rasmus Myrgren of Sweden, with the Russian Igor Lisovenko in third. More woe for Australian Tom Slingsby who has yet to break out of the twenties.

Not such good news in the Laser Radial, where Britain's Penny Clark finished 22 and drops to tenth overall. The race was won by Gintare Volungeviciute of Lithuainia who is now second overall behind Anna Tunnicliffe of the USA who finished fifth today.

Back into winning mode for Britain's Nick Dempsey, he moves into third overall after winning his RS:X race today ahead of Aichen Wang of China. Shahar Zubari of Israel continues to lead despite a 17th today.

In the Women's RS:X, Bryony Shaw was called OCS. Jessica Crisp of Australia won the race wirg Barbera Kendall second and overall leader Jian Yin of China in third.

For the two classes starting thrier series today, Leigh McMillan and Will Howden in the Tornado finished sixth, in a race won by Fernando Echavarri and Anton Paz Blanco of Spain, with Iordanis Paschalidis and Konstantinos Trigonis of Greece second and Mitch Booth and Pim Nieuwenhuis of Australia third.

In the Star class, Britain's Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson finished seventh after rounding the final mark in third. Winners were Fredrik Loof and Anders Ekstrom of Sweden who led the complete race. Second were Marc Pickel and Ingo Borkowski, Germany and third, Afonso Domingos and Bernardo Santos of Porugal.

In the Women's 470 Christina Bassadone and Saskia Clark had a better day, with an eighth and a third and are eighth overall. Leaders are Elise Rechichi and Tessa Parkinson of Australia who scored a second and a fifth, they lead by ten points from the Dutch pair, Marcelien De Koning and Lobke Berkhout.

Poor day for Britain's Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield in the Men's 470, a 20th becomes their discard and they drop to fourth overall. Winners were Tetsuya Matsunaga and Taro Ueno of Japan. Overall Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page, who were fifth today, have a 16 point lead over Nicolas Charbonnier and Olivier Bausset of France.