Goodison goes for Gold on Tuesday
by Lindsey Bell on 19 Aug 2008
2008 Olympic Regatta - Day 10 - Tornado and Star (GBR) Richard Gladwell
www.photosport.co.nz
Having scored 1, 4, 6 in his three Laser races today, Goodison, who finished fourth on his Olympic debut in Athens, can afford to finish eight boats behind second-placed Swede Rasmus Myrgren to claim the Olympic crown and with a 21 point advantage over Gustavo Lima (POR) in third it means that, barring a medal race disqualification, the Brit cannot finish lower than second overall.
Goodison, who opened his 2008 Olympic regatta account with a 15th place, said:
'It was a hard regatta at the beginning of the week and all the results were up and down but it was only a matter of time before everyone else had bad races and I came through and came good again.
'I thought I had a great day on the water today – I nailed each start and I think just had patience. It was pretty shifty so you just had to wait for the shifts to come back.
'I just held my nerve, took the right shifts and sailed really well today.'
Penny Clark will also contest the Laser Radial medal race tomorrow, having crept in in 10th place overall having scored 18, (23), 13 today. The highest placing she can score is eighth overall.
Nick Dempsey currently lies in silver medal position in the men’s RS:X scoring 5,3 today to put him within three points of leader Tom Ashley (NZL).
While Bryony Shaw is also handily-placed in the women’s event, in fourth just nine points off the top spot with just one more opening series race left to sail before Wednesday’s medal race.
Three great races for Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson – 8, 2, 1 - propelled Britain’s Star representatives up to second overall, three points behind Swedes Fredrik Loof and Anders Ekstrom after seven races.
'I was looking at our series going into today, and it looked reasonable,' Percy commented. 'It was just missing some good results, so fortunately we managed to get two out of three that were good today that brings it to a respectable series – but there’s still long way to go.
'The job is not even a little bit done – we’ve got to go out tomorrow and perform again. Days like today are actually quite stressful – there’s not one respite where you can be anything but somewhere between very, very concentrated and very, very stressed. So we need to come down from that and keep plugging away.'
In the Tornados, Leigh McMillan and Will Howden scored (14), 7, 7 to drop to 12th overall.
Schedule of racing – Tuesday 19 August (times are UK)
Course A: 06:00 hrs – Laser medal race
Course A: 06:00 hrs – Laser Radial medal race
Course B: 04:00hrs – RS:X men and women (1 race each)
Course C: 06:00hrs – Star and Tornado (2 races each)
Olympics Day 10 Table of results all Classes -
http://www.sail-world.com/UK/Olympics-Day-10-Table-of-results-all-Classes/47891
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