420 & 470 Junior Europeans in Bulgaria - Day 4
by Luissa Smith 14 Aug 2015 13:38 BST
10-15 August 2015
In the 470 Men and 470 Women fleets, the leaderboard is much more finely balanced, with tomorrow's final two races to decide the ten boat medal race line-up set to be gruelling.
A short postponement ashore, before the 412 sailors in the four Championship fleets headed out for two races in each fleet out on the two course areas off Bourgas Beach in a breeze of around 10 knots.
470 MEN
The tipping point in the 470 Men arrived today, as the consistent scoreline from David Charles/Alex Charles (ESP) saw them rise to the top of the leaderboard from a race 8 win. The Spanish could not quite break away though, with a UFD penalty in race 9 putting them on equal points with Italy's Matteo Capurro/Matteo Puppo, who took the tiebreak advantage.
Climbing back up to a podium position are the reigning 470 Junior European silver medallists Malte Winkel/Matti Cipra whose 4,3 tally converted them to 3rd overall up from 7th at the start of the day.
Right now the leaderboard pegging is looking very similar to last year's 470 Junior Europeans in Poland, where Malte Winkel/Matti Cipra took silver and David Charles/Alex Charles the bronze medals. There is plenty of unfinished business here in the fifty-one boat 470 Men fleet and two more races on Friday to decide the top 10 teams advancing to Saturday's medal race.
470 WOMEN
Just a switch in places for the teams holding the top five positions. The leaderboard fight is unfolding to a finely balanced battle between Spain's Bàrbara Cornudella Ravetllat/Sara López and Silvia Mas/Paula Barcelo, as the lead exchanged hands today.
Two more race wins to Ravetllat/López, make it three in a row, and accelerate them into pole position, as well as marking a career best performance for the partnership.
Closing in are the 470 Junior World Champions Benedetta di Salle/Alessandra Dubbini, scoring a solid 2,4 to hold their leaderboard third. Tomorrow's two races will a challenge for control of the fleet.
Despite a series best score of second in race 9, Canada's Allie Surrette/Ali Ten Hove drop from 10th to 11th, and will be intent on reclaiming their top ten place tomorrow. Just two years ago they were competing at the 2013 420 Worlds and ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship, but now their focus is on securing Canada's place at the Rio 2016 Olympics.
420 OPEN
Eight races down and the USA's Wiley Rogers/Jack Parkin have proven their mastery of the race track here in Bourgas. The team is managing the competition skilfully and has converted their 5 point lead from yesterday, to a 24 point lead today.
Giving it their best shot to displace them are Greece's Souzana-Ioli Bakatsia/Nikoletta Efstathia Papageo in second overall, with Will Logue/Bram Brakman (USA) also on the attack and matching the points score of the Greeks.
On current form Rogers/ Parkin seem unstoppable and assured of gold, so the fight will be for silver and bronze.
The ninety boat 420 Open fleet is now split into equal fleets of 45 boats for the gold and silver six race final series. Leading the silver fleet are Portugal's Tomas Barreto/Joao Prierto.
420 UNDER 17
Ido Bilik/Ofek Shalgi (ISR) continue to extend their lead over the rest of the thirty-four boat under 17 fleet.
No change in the next two teams, Aggelos Arvanitis/Theofanis Kanakaris (GRE) and Carlos Balaguer/Ignacio Balaguer (ESP) respectively. A win to Matteo Zerbin/Giulio Maccarone (ITA) in race 8 brings them closer to the podium places in 6th overall, but they have three Spanish teams to bypass first.
With 4 races over the next two days, it would be hard to predict the Israeli pair being shifted, but the silver and bronze places are wide open.
2015junioreuropeans.420sailing.org/en