ROUG 'BLOWS' START AND VALUABLE POINTS

by Ian Grant on 26 Sep 2000 Atlanta Women's Europe class sailing Gold Medallist Kristine Roug of Denmark placed her title defence in damage control with a critical starting error today.

Roug basically beat the starting signal by a split second to be declared an official non starter in race 8 when she was poised to challenge the series leader Shirley Robertson of Great Britain.

When they faced up to the start Robertson led Roug by five points and just seconds later Roug had crashed down the score suffering a 28 point penalty for her error.

Robertson also lost control of the lead during the race when she finished with her second below par result of the day.

Argentine skipper Serena Amato became the new leader when she finished with a deserved second place in one of the most exciting tactical races of the regatta.

Amato became involved in a very close duel with Lenka Smidova (CZE) before Smidova edged clear to register a four second win.

Her 6-2 compared with Robertson's 8-17 and Roug 4-OCS have completely reversed the medal order setting the stage for an interesting duel in the remaining races.

RESULTS: RACE 8.(Provisional) CZE 1, ARG 2, BLR 3, AUT 4, GRE 5, CAN 6, NED 7, NZL 8, FIN 9, AUS 10.

PROGRESSIVE POINTS (Provisional). ARG (31) 1, GBR (32) 2, ESP (45) 3, DEN (49) 4, NED (55) 5, BEL (56) 6, FIN (62) 7, CZE (63) 8, ITA (65) 9, IRL (69) 10.