Sail For Gold Day 5 - Medal Race Fleets Determined

Image: Yuya Ishikawa and Shouichi Yanagawa of Japan © onEdition

Skandia Sail For Gold - Weymouth, Great Britain
14-19 September 2009

The cream of crews from around the world will battle it out for medals when the 2009 Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta reaches its climax at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy tomorrow, Saturday 19 September.

In the 470 Men fleet, Australians Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page nipped back into the lead when the won race one of the day with British overnight leaders Nic Asher and Elliot Willis recording their worst result of the regatta with a sixth place. Despite a tenth in this opening race followed up wit fellow Brits Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell hung on to their podium position and even extended their margin over the fourth placed Spaniards Onan Barreiros and Aaron Sarmiento.

There promises to be some thrilling action in the men’s 470 medal race, with the Australian crew of Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page and the British pair of Nic Asher and Elliot Willis both neck-and-neck on 20 points a-piece. Britain’s Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell are in third on 34 points, with the Spaniards Onan Barreiros and Aaron Sarmiento just one point adrift in fourth.

The Japanese crew of Ai Kondo and Wakako Tabata went to the top of the 470 women’s leaderboard for the first time today after winning their first race of the day and they stayed there after finishing fourth in the second.

They are now just one point clear of the Dutch pairing of Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout, who scored a 3 and 1 today.

“I’m very happy, but there’s only point in it,” said Kondo. “We hope we will win it tomorrow,” added Tabata.

New Zealanders Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie, who prospered in the strong winds earlier this week, dropped down to fourth after following their two 13ths yesterday with a 14th and a sixth today.

It was a good day for Britain’s Pippa Wilson and Saskia Clark, who came second and fifth to climb from sixth to third. They are nine points behind the leaders, but there are another two crews within four points behind them.

Saskia Clark said, “We’re still a fresh team and we really feel like we’ve been making a breakthrough in our communications, particularly in the last two days. That’s been reflected in our results. We’ll just go out there with the aim of sailing for the race win and hopefully that will put us in a good place.”

UK Broadcast Coverage
BBC - Watch the action live on Saturday from 0900-1500 BST on the BBC Sport website (UK only), with the major finals from 1200-1400 BST, also on the BBC red button.

More Information
Skandia Sail For Gold event website
470 Men Results
470 Women Results

Source – www.offshorerules.com and Skandia Sail For Gold