France and New Zealand Dominate in Palma

Another day of challenging conditions in Palma delivers yet more changes in the 470 men and women leaderboards. After postponements ashore waiting for the wind to go from zero to the 6-8 knots which got racing underway, there was the usual shuffling in positions across the fleets as teams have tried to deliver their best results to put them into a strong position going into Friday which will determine the top 10 boats going into the Medal Race. Despite the challenging conditions, the 470 women have remained reasonably steady with the same top three, albeit shuffling positions over the past few days, whilst the 470 men sees new faces at the top.

470 Men
All change at the top of the men's leaderboard as series leaders going into today Mat Belcher and Malcolm Page (AUS) are knocked back to fifth on the leaderboard, despite posting a 7, 7. The series lead has been taken over by Nicolas Charbonnier and new crew Jeremie Mion whose third place finish in race 8 today was sufficient to pop them into the lead. However, French team mates Pierre Leboucher and Vincent Garos are never far behind and also upped their game to move into a podium position of second overall. Mion had up until recently been sailing with Sofian Bouvet, and between them had won multiple Junior World and European Championship titles - and so far it looks as though this new pairing is proving just as successful.

Also moving on up are the reigning 470 European Champions Panagiotis Mantis and Pavlos Kagialis of Greece who have been steadily climbing the leaderboard to finish day 4 in third overall.

Race wins in the Gold fleet today went to another Greek team of Panagiotis Kampouridis and Efstathios Papadopoulos in race 7 who move up to ninth overall, whilst Israel's Gideon Kliger and Eran Sela delivered the bullet in race 8 to shift up to nineteenth overall.

A good day for Germany's Lucas Zellmer and Heiko Seelig who gave their best performance of the series with a 4, 2 score to end today in 20th overall, up from an overnight 32. A great outcome for them.

So far, in the 470 men all the top 10 teams have delivered a wide spread of results – and there is all still to play for as the fleet goes into the penultimate day which will determine the top 10 boats going through to Saturday's medal race.

Leading the silver fleet are Jan Jasper Wagner and Tobias Bolduan (GER).

470 Women
New Zealand's Jo Aleh and Bianca Barbarich-Bacher took a race win and then a 19th and inch up the board into second place in the Women’s 470 with only Israel out in front by a narrow two points.

The Israeli team of Gil Cohen and Bouskila Vered did not have a good day, but when others have a worse day your day can seem good. All the top three players going into today had an upset in form, but for the Israelis their 22, 12 posting managed to shift them up into first overall for the first time in the series with a narrow 2 point lead over the chasing Kiwis. Gil Cohen and Bouskila Vered are so far delivering their best result ever at an ISAF Sailing World Cup event – and whilst there are still two races to go until determining the top 10 cut who go through to the medal race – they are looking secure and potentially on track for a podium outcome.

The Japanese duo of Ai Kondo and Wakako Tabata who sailed brilliantly over the first half of the series have faltered slipping back to third overall after a fourth day posting of 18, 21 – their worst day of the series.

The second win of the day went to Argentina's Fernanda Sesto and Consuelo Monsegur who have now upped their game into the top 10 boats – and if they sail safe tomorrow will be making an appearance in the top 10 teams going forwards to the medal race. Who knows there is even a chance they can match their third place finish achieved at January's Rolex Miami OCR.

A great conversion in form for Brazil's 2008 Olympic bronze medal helm Fernanda Oliveira, who together with Ana Luisa Barbachan posted a 5, 3 to leap up the standings to finish today in 16th overall, up from yesterday's 30th. They have a lot of work to do to make it to the Medal Race top 10 – but judging by the shuffling of positions so far anything is possible.

Austria's Lara Vadlau and Eva-Maria Shimak delivered a stunner of a day with a 2,7 posting, but unfortunately it has done little to change their leaderboard fortunes as they were unable to compete on the first day, then were over the line at the start of race 3 – so these letter scores have really knocked out their subsequent great results. However, their form is evident.

Points remain tight in the Women’s 470 though and the final two days of the event will be all important for sailors and exciting for spectators.

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More Information:
Event Website
470 Men Results
470 Women Results

Main Image: Closed downwind duelling. All images ©  Thom Touw