British pair extend lead on Day 5 Junior 470 World

by Rick van Wijngaarden on 28 Jul 2008
The fifth day of racing took place today, at the Junior 470 World Championships for Men/Mixed and Women crews, in light conditions, with a 5-9 knots breeze and a flat sea. Britain's Hannah Mills and Katrina Hughes extended their lead with another double win in today's races. Lior Lavie and Yam Amir (ISR) lead the men's series.

Women's 470
There were not many changes in the Women's 470's as Hannah MILSS and Katrina Hughes (GBR) lead the fleet convincingly by scoring two bullets, and quite a distance in metres ahead of the fleet. Tara Pacheco and Berta Betanzos (ESP) scored five points today with a 2nd and 3rd place, only point less as Sweden's Lisa Ericson and Astrid Gabrielsson (SWE).Although the Women's top three did not change, the ladies from Great Britain increased their lead in points to strengthen their position to go into the final medal race where points count double.

Men's 470
It seemed like the overnight leaders Steven Lefevre and Steven Krol from The Netherlands had a problem to handle the lightening conditions. During the last few days, their strength was to use wind and waves downwind and on the reach to compensate losses of a bad start and upwind speed. In race nine, today's first race, they start in the middle, head for the left, and see their main opponents from Israel, Sweden and Italy tack to the right, which turned out to be the favorable side of the course.

The Dutch boys could not recover and finish in 12th position. In race ten, they do no better than a 6th position, and give back the Championship's lead to Israel's Lion Lavie and Yam Amir (ISR) who finish 3rd and 1st in today's races. The boys from France, Berenger Balzeau and Mathieu Fountaine, who did extremely well in this Championship so far, did not compete today because of an illness, and unfortunately they will not resume racing tomorrow.

In tomorrows' last two races, both in the Men/Mixed and Womens' event, the elite top 10 to enter the medal race will be decided on.

Top 5 470 Women
1 GBR 835 Hannah Mills, Katrina Hughes 15
2 ESP 696 Tara Pacheco, Berta Betazos 23
3 SWE 33 Lisa Ericson, Astrid, Gabrielsson 27
4 GER 51 Annika Bochman, Anika Lorenz 44
5 AUS 352 Stacey Omay, Chelsea Hall 45

Top 5 470 Men / Mixed
1 ISR 9 Lior Lavie, Yam Amir 39
2 NED 77 Steven Lefevre, Steven Krol 41
3 ITA 4 Luca Dubbini, Roberto Dubbini 49
4 SWE 333 Victor Bergstrom, Marcus Dackhammar 50
5 GRE 7 Georgios Vasilas, Efstathios Papadopoulos 61

Full results: http://www.470.sails.pl/jwc2008/ or http://www.470.org/champ08/jwc/