Silver lining for Rickham and Birrell on eventful day 3 of Rio 2016 Paralympics

Rickham & Birrell on day 3 of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Sailing Competition © Richard Langdon / British Sailing Team

A potentially fantastic day on Guanabara Bay for Alexandra Rickham and Niki Birrell was soured when gear failure resulted in them not being able to start the third and final SKUD18 race in Rio today.

A second and their first race win of the regatta had moved the Brits into silver medal position overall as the halfway point of the series, and the last race of the day, loomed. But a problem with the jib sheet during that race's starting sequence saw them retire back to the marina while the rest of their rivals battled it out on the bay.

With the all boats able to discard their worst score of the series now five races have been completed, Rickham and Birrell are discounting this Did Not Start (DNS) score. At the close of play they still sat in second overall, but losing ground on the Australian leaders, Daniel Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch (AUS), with five races to come.

The only saving grace for the Brits were that two of the hot medal contenders, John McRoberts and Jackie Gay (CAN), and Monika Gibes and Piotr Cichocki (POL), already carrying a disqualification from earlier in the event, also saw their scores from race six chalked off for starting penalties. In addition, Marco Gualandris and Marta Zanetti (ITA), also amongst the leading boats, retired from that race too.

Rickham explains: "One and half a minutes into the last start sequence everything was fine, we were really happy and ready then our jib sheet failed and we had to retire. That was really unfortunate as we had gained some momentum today and were really hoping to make it another top two finish for the day. That didn't happen.

"But with the Poles and Canadians also having OCSs and the Italians retiring means they all have maximums on their scoresheet too, with the Polish team having to count a maximum score, due to the protest we won against them on Monday.

"It would appear anything could happen in Rio! Potentially it could still all be to play for. We're going to soldier on as who knows what will happen in the last five races. The Aussies are looking strong but you just don't know what's going to happen."

Having kicked their regatta off with consistent 4, 3, 4 scores, five-time World Champions Rickham and Birrell really began firing on all cylinders today.

They worked their way through the entire fleet after start line issues in the day's opening race to ultimately take second behind the Australians, catching and passing both the strong Canadian and USA boats into the bargain, as the welcome South Westerly breeze gradually built throughout from 16 knots at the start to 20.

In the second race, and with the wind now gusting up to 23 knots in the early stages, the Brits led from start to finish, making the most of the right-hand bias on the Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf) course to cross the finish line a minute ahead of Australia.

This form has left Rickham and Birrell with plenty of heart moving forwards.

Rickham added: "Our first race we sailed brilliantly. I really think we could have won the race if we got the start right as we clearly had decent speed.

"Race two was really good, we finally won one! We had a really big lead because we were one of the only teams to put our kite up on the reach. It was really patchy across the course so unfortunately the other teams were able to get back into it. But we managed to battle back. We had really great boat speed across the course, up and downwind, and eventually took the race with a decent lead across the line."

The SKUD18's are scheduled to contest an 11 race series each, with two races per day from Monday 12 – Friday 16 September before one final series race for each class, after which the medals will be awarded, on Saturday 17 September.

To follow the team'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.