Britain's sailors ready for final medal showdowns at Rio 2016 Paralympic Sailing
by Imogen Stanley 17 Sep 2016 08:24 BST
12-17 September 2016
Two medals are at stake for Britain on the final day of the Rio 2016 Paralympic sailing regatta on Saturday as Helena Lucas goes for 2.4mR gold and Alexandra Rickham and Niki Birrell battle for SKUD18 silver.
All classes are set to contest their one final series race with defending champion Lucas holding the narrowest one-point advantage over France's Athens 2004 gold medallist, Damien Seguin, at the top of the 2.4mR leaderboard.
Meanwhile Birrell and Rickham have to beat John McRoberts and Jackie Gay (CAN) by two places – with one boat between them - to win SKUD silver and better their London 2012 bronze.
Racing is set to resume from 4pm with the final Sonar race, with racing from 5pm for the SKUDs and 6pm for the 2.4mRs. No race can be started after 6.30pm and medals will be presented after the close of racing. There is no provision to race on Sunday.
Lucas had provisionally finished racing today with placings of third and sixth, which had put her four points behind the then leader Matthew Bugg (AUS) with the final race to follow.
But after Bugg was disqualified from the day's second race for a right of way incident involving the Spanish sailor, combined with a 14th place finish in race one, the advantage was handed back to the Brit.
Lucas said: "I just need to go out and sail my own race. I have to hope that conditions fall into my hands and then absolutely go out there and win the race. We will then see what happens, it's the best plan I can have.
"Generally I think I have been starting well and have really good speed upwind so that has really helped. I've tried to keep it simple when I can, which is really hard as people are tacking on you left right and centre, so it is a battle, an absolutely battle."
Any outside chance of claiming SKUD18 gold disappeared for Rickham and Birrell today as Daniel Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch (AUS) successfully defended their title from London 2012 with a race to spare.
Nevertheless the Brits, who are currently in bronze medal position a point behind the Canadians, couldn't be more pumped to still be in the hunt for silver.
Birrell said: "Bring it on! We're really pleased to still be in the fight tomorrow. We're not interested in what's happened so far just bring it all on tomorrow. We're going to fight like hell to get the best result we can.
"I still think we will get silver so let's go and prove it. Me and Alex have been under pressure over the last eight years plenty of times before. Normally it comes out ok and I'm confident we've got the right team around us to deliver our best tomorrow. It's all we can try to do and hopefully that will be enough."
There was disappointment, however, for John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Steve Thomas as their hopes of claiming a first Paralympic Sonar medal were ended with race finishes of eighth and 10th today.
But, currently in ninth overall, the four-time Paralympians still want to end their Rio 2016 on a high with the best final placing they can possibly achieve.
Stodel said: "We will keep fighting. We've only got one more race so we want to go out with a bang. Unfortunately for us, it is just not going to be.
"Rio delivered its full on craziness today, it wasn't our day and it's looking like it's just not meant to be. We've done the best we can and given everything we've got and we just want go out on a high and just ultimately enjoy the race."
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.