Win for Mills and Clark puts them in Women's 470 pole at Rio 2016

Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark sailed to the top of the 470 Women's leaderboard as they won their only race in Rio today (Friday 12 August).

The 470 Women are now set for a rest day tomorrow and the Brits ensured they gave their rivals plenty to think about as they led from start to finish to pick up their second race win of the regatta.

In was a difficult day on Guanabara Bay as at first the 470s were held for over an hour on shore as race officials waited for the wind to fill in and swing from the east to a more favourable westerly. And when they did finally get afloat they continued playing the waiting game until almost the last available chance to start a race.

The 470s are now at the halfway point of their regatta and are set to resume action on Sunday. Mills admits they were just happy to enjoy another solid day.

She said: "It's such a hard venue, fighting for the top spot we just need to keep pushing. We have got five more races before the Medal Race and we just need to be in with a shout to win come that race.

"It's always nice when you know there is only going to be one race for the day because you can really go out and smash it as hard as you can and try and get a good result, which we did.

"We executed the start we wanted, nailed the first upwind and from there on in it was just about staying ahead. The wind was dying and it was getting more and more shifty and it's dark so it was nice to get one really clean race."

Ai Kondo Yoshida and Miho Yoshioka (JPN) currently sit second while the French 2016 World Champions, Camille Lecointre and Hélène Defrance, moved into third.

The 470 Women's class is scheduled to contest an 11 race series, with two races per day on 10, 11, 12, 14 and 15 August before the final one off medal race on Wednesday 17 August.

To follow the 470 girl's fortunes at Rio 2016 visit www.rya.org.uk/Rio2016, follow @BritishSailing on Twitter and like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/britishsailingteam