The breeze ranged from 12-14 knots from the south-west, in a much more consistent delivery compared to previous days. Who would break away in the three demanding back to back races, which saw aggressive form around the race track?

Report updated after protest hearings on Tuesday evening:

Women’s Two Person Dinghy - 470

Hannah Mills/Saskia Clark (GBR) had come into Rio 2016 intent on avenging their missed opportunity for gold in 2012, when a 1 point difference awarded them silver and New Zealand’s Jo Aleh/Polly Powrie gold. The Brits didn’t start quite as they intended, but equally they didn’t put a foot wrong – slow and sure-footed was their approach, as they built up from a 6th overall on race day 1 to take the lead from race 5.

Today their four years of preparation since London 2012 paid off in a golden performance, as they extended their lead from 4 points after 7 races, to a gold medal winning 20 points after the 10th race of the opening series. Mills/Clark secured a scorecard of 3,2,3 which put them in an unassailable position. Aleh/Polly fought the day of their lives in an awe-inspiring delivery of two races wins and a 4th place to climb the leaderboard to 2nd overall, up from 7th at the start of the day. A threatening assault on the British pair, but it was too late for the Kiwis to bring a halt to the Mills/Clark dominance. So, whilst in theory the job is done and gold is theirs, in practice Mills/Clark need to start and finish Wednesday’s medal race without penalty to seal gold.

In astonishment after racing, Mills said, “It’s disbelief, I didn’t trust Joe, our coach, that he got the points right and it took a while, it still hasn’t sunk in! You try not to let it affect you too much, but we knew if we beat all our main rivals in that last race we would be guaranteed the gold.

“That obviously goes through your head a bit, especially as the wind started to die and it got a bit more wacky. Tensions were high but I’m absolutely shocked, stunned and so relieved. We need to not mess up, be solid and just get round the course.”

The battle will now unfold for silver and bronze, with all but one of the same ten teams that started today in the medal race hunt. An escalation on performance from Poland’s Agnieszka Skrzypulec/Irmina Gliszczynska pitches them into the medal race in 10th overall, usurping Chile’s Nadja Horwitz/Sofia Middleton who end their Rio 2016 Olympic campaign just 1 point off the medal race line-up.

In the hunt for silver and bronze medals are any of the teams placed 2nd through to 7th, with just an 11 point divide between them all, so the medal race challenge for a podium finish is wide open.

Whilst out of the hunt for medals, Poland’s Skrzypulec/Gliszczynska are experts at winning medal races, having done so at both the 2016 470 Worlds and 2016 470 Europeans, so their moment of glory to win a race in Rio may yet come.

The 470 Women’s Medal Race is scheduled to take place on the Pão de Açucar (Sugarloaf) course at 1300 hours local time and will be broadcast live on television.

470 Women - Medal Race Top 10
1. Hannah Mills/Saskia Clark (GBR) - 28 pts
2. Jo Aleh/Polly Powrie (NZL) - 48 pts
3. Annie Haegar/Briana Provancha (USA) - 49 pts
4. Camille Lecointre/Helene Defrance - 50 pts
5. Ai Kondo Yoshida/Miho Yoshioka (JPN) - 52 pts
6. Afrodite Zegers/Anneloes van Veen (NED) - 59 pts
7. Tina Mrak/Veronika Macarol (SLO) - 65 pts
8. Fernanda Oliveira/Ana Barbachan (BRA) - 68 pts
9. Lara Vadlau/Jola Ogar (AUT) - 74 pts
10. Agnieszka Skrzypulec/Irmina Gliszczynska (POL) - 96 pts

Men’s Two Person Dinghy - 470

A remarkable battle for the medals in the 470 men will feature a three-team shoot out on Wednesday,which will be anything but straightforward.

Today’s three races didn’t change the leaderboard top three, but did shuffle up the points and order. Remaining firmly in first overall are Croatia’s Sime Fantela/Igor Marenic from a solid 8,6,3 scorecard. The partnership is the only team to hold all-top ten race results, and sit on an 11 point advantage over Greece’s Panagotis Mantis/Pavlos Kagialis. The Greeks went into today in third overall, on a 7 point deficit to Aussies Mathew Belcher/Will Ryan, but turned that around to now hold a 2 point advantage from a superb scorecard of 2,2,2.

Australia’s Belcher/Ryan will have their work cut out for the gold medal, and may have to decide whether a focus on silver will be their medal race goal.

The 470 Men’s Medal Race is scheduled to take place on the Pão de Açucar (Sugarloaf) course at 1400 hours local time and will be broadcast live on television.

470 Men - Medal Race Top 10
1. Sime Fantela/Igor Marenic (CRO) - 27 pts
2. Panagotis Mantis/Pavlos Kagialis (GRE)  - 38 pts
3. Mathew Belcher/Will Ryan  (AUS) - 40 pts
4. Stuart McNay/Dave Hughes (USA) - 67 pts
5. Anton Dahlberg/Fredrik Bergstrom (SWE) - 69 pts
6. Luke Patience/Chris Grube (GBR) - 69 pts
7. Matthias Schmid/Florian Reichstaedter (AUT) - 73 pts
8. Sofian Bouvet/Jeremie Mion (FRA) - 79 pts
9. Paul Snow-Hansen/Daniel Wilcox (NZL) - 92 pts
10. Yannick Brauchli/Romuald Hausser (SUI) - 92 pts

FOLLOW 470 RACING AT:

Live Tracking - racing will be available to watch in 2D and 3D via the live tracking. Live tracking will be available when racing commences via - http://www.sailing.org/olympics/rio2016/multimedia/live_tracking.php

Live Tracking via the Sailviewer-3D Tablet App will be available for devices with 7" or greater screens.

Click here to download the iOS Application - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sailviewer-3d/id912801278
Click here to download the Android Application - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stsportservice.sailviewer

Competition Status - race updates feed in straight from the Race Committee boats, including data such as race times, course type, the status of each race and the plan moving forward. The competition status screen will be available when racing commences via - http://www.sailing.org/olympics/rio2016/multimedia/live_tracking.php

Live Blogging - Sailing journalist Craig Leweck will be following the racing LIVE on World Sailing’s Olympic Blog throughout Rio 2016. Follow LIVE here - http://www.sailing.org/olympics/rio2016/multimedia/live_blog.php#.V6dUbY6BLqM

Photography - High resolution imagery free for editorial usage will be provided throughout Rio 2016 by Sailing Energy. Imagery will be available to download via - http://worldsailing.photoshelter.com/gallery-collection/RIO-2016-OLYMPIC-GAMES/C0000LUebIfXkjB0 The password to download is WSimages

Photos from our onsite 470 Class photographers will be availabled on our Rio Olympics microsite photo gallery - http://2016olympics.470.org/en/default/races/race-photogalleries and 470 Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/470OlympicSailing

Press Releases - World Sailing will be releasing international press releases after racing throughout the duration of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. All the latest news and reports will be available to read here - http://www.sailing.org/olympics/rio2016/news/index.php

Television - find out who your Olympic broadcaster is, click here - https://www.olympic.org/rio-2016/broadcasters. The following link - http://go.olympic.org/WS - will redirect you to the Rights Holding Broadcaster in your country.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Follow on World Sailing’s social networks:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ISAFWorldSailing
Instagram - https://instagram.com/isafworldsailing/
Twitter - @worldsailing
Snapchat - Follow our Story on Snapchat, search for worldsailing 

Follow on 470 Class social networks:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/470OlympicSailing
Twitter - @470Sailing
470 Social Wall - http://2016olympics.470.org/en/default/races/race-social

MARK BY MARK ROUNDINGS

Check out the mark by mark peformance of teams, gains and losses, and overall times: