Wei Ni wins the Optimist Worlds at Salinas, Ecuador

Without needing to sail the final race 13 year-old Wei Ni from Shanghai, China is the 2004 IODA world champion. His results have been devastating, starting with placings of 2, 1, 5, 1 and apart from one race he was never out of the top ten. With 1,4, 1 today he can take back his discard and still finish with a minimum 19 point lead.

China's first Optimist medal came as silver in 2001 in "home" waters at Qingdao from Zhu Ye and this was followed by Xu Lijia, 6th over-all and first girl in the windier venue of Corpus Christi. Last year Wei Ni showed that he could deal with the big waves of Gran Canaria and lay in th top ten at halfway before falling sick.

For the record Wei weighs 40kg and measures 1.55m. He used, like maybe 30% of the fleet, a Toni Tio sail from Spain and used the standard McLaughlin foils supplied with the charter boat.

Behind him the minor medals are mathematically between five sailors. Currently second is Lukasz Przybytek (POL) aiming to improve on last year's best ever Polish result of 4th. Next are two New Zealanders, again representing a big leap forward for the Kiwi team, Eugenio Diaz (ESP) and 2003 world champion Filip Matika. Filip has realistically little chance of a medal but this does not diminish the fact that he has been a great champion.

Among the girls gold and silver are already decided for Tina Lutz (GER) and Nathalie Zimmermann (PER) but the bronze remains to be fought out between Susannah Pyatt (NZL) and Stephanie Roble (USA).

Full results at www.salinasyachtclub.org/optiworlds