Sydney 2000 - Olympic Sailing Day Seven

Ian Barker and Simon Hiscocks have won Britain's first medal in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Tomorrow, with one race left to sail, it will be decided if it is Silver of Bronze.

In other fleets we have had cracking starts with Iain Percy leading the Finns, Ben Ainslie leading the Lasers, Shirley Robertson leading the Europes and Ian Walker and Mark Covell second in the Stars.

Shirley Robertson won race 5 but posted a 13th in the last race today. This discard is still better than any other sailors in the top 3. Ben Ainslie posted two 4th positions which was consistent enough to move him ahead of Robert Scheidt of Brazil who won race 6 but had a 12th in race 5.

Ian Percy started with an excellent 2nd and 1st to take the lead in the Finns after two races. Close on his heels is Mateusz Kusznierewicz with a 1st and a 4th. Ian Walker and Mark Covell made a perfect start winning Race 1 in the Stars. A 9th in Race 2 was enough to put them into second place overall.

SAILING MEMBERS OF TEAM GB CLAIM FIRST MEDAL

Team Great Britain Report from Nigel Cherrie

The seventh day of racing at the Sydney Olympic sailing regatta produced a new set of Olympic medallists for Team GB and some rich results for the rest of the sailing team.

Although the colour is undecided with Monday's final race (series race 16) in the 49er fleet deciding which step on the podium they will stand, Ian Barker and Simon Hiscocks are guaranteed either a Silver or Bronze medal.

On stepping ashore Ian paid tribute to crew Simon Hiscocks. "Simon has been tremendous, he has done a great job. We have also had superb help from our coach and from many other British crews in preparing for this event and I would like to say thanks to them all". Explaining the task ahead of them in the final race, Ian explained: "If the American's win the race we must do no worse than sixth to secure the Silver medal".

Ian teamed up with Simon Hiscocks in mid 1998. Simon's youth and strength is well suited to the rigours of the 49er, an Australian designed high performance class. They gelled immediately, winning the Bronze medal at the 1998 European Championships and, after securing their place in Team GB in April of this year, have slowly been building towards this event. "I am a great believer that you should not become too good to soon. I wanted to come steadily into these Games and it has worked," added Ian.

For Andy Beadsworth, Richard Sydenham and Barry Parkin, the opening round robin of the Soling match racing series lined them up against some of the most formidable crews in the competition, including the past two Olympic champions, 1992 Gold medallist Jesper Bank (Denmark) and 1996 Gold medal winner Jochen Schumann (Germany). Only the top three boats would progress through to the next round.

Having lost to Philippe Presti (France), but beaten Bank, the trio's hopes of making the next round rested on beating Pre Olympic champion Hans Wallen (Sweden), Schumann and Sergei Pichugin (Ukraine). The British crew gave it their all but were second across the line in each match. "We're hugely disappointed. We didn't make it happen today," commented Andy Beadsworth on returning the dock. Along with Presti and Pichugin their medal hopes are now over.

The Finn and Star classes got their competition underway today with two races out on the ocean. A second place and a race win from Iain Percy puts him at the top of the scoreboard, two points ahead of 1996 Olympic and current world champion Mateusz Kusnierewicz (Poland) "I'm pleased with my start today but we now have two days off so I'll treat it like a new start. It's nice that it was a good day for Team GB with Steve Redgrave's and Ian and Simon's performance, which is always good for moral,"commented Iain.

In the Europe class, Shirley Robertson has maintained her lead over another current Olympic and world champion, Kristine Roug of Denmark. After six of the eleven race series, Robertson has built up a nine-point cushion over Roug. She won the first race of the day but used her discard in the second race after finishing thirteenth. "I have never been in this position at an Olympic Games before. The conditions on the course were more consistent today than they have never been but in general the conditions that we have had are not particularly favourable to me. I am now trying to stay relaxed about it, we have two days off and it would be great to get a little change in the conditions. We'll just have to wait and see," commented Shirley.

Alongside the Finn class on offshore course E, Ian Walker and Mark Covell also started the Star class battle with an opening race win and then a ninth place which kick starts their campaign with second place overall, just four points adrift of Jose Maria van der Ploeg (Spain), the 1992 Finn Gold Medallist. "We were delighted to win a race but the results show what a tough week it is going to be," said Ian.

Realising that consistency was going to be the key to the day, Ben Ainslie posted two fourth places in Laser fleet races five and six and has now edged out a four point lead over Brazilian Robert Scheidt. "It was really tricky today on the course (D), the wind was up and down so it was really hard to stay in the top five. You can go from the lead to twentieth very quickly and I need to be consistently in the top five," remarked Ben.

49er: (15 races, 2 discards)

Europe: (6 races, 1 discard)

Laser: (6 races, 1 discard)

Finn: (2 races, no discard)

Star: (2 races, no discard)

More Information:

• YachtsandYachting.com Olympic Sailing Page
• Official Sydney 2000 Website with full results