Athens 2004 - Day 4

by Sacha Oswald, RYA 18 Aug 2004 00:02 BST

Rogers and Glanfield maintain lead despite tricky conditions

After a windy day yesterday which saw the local Meltemi wind in full force, today could not have been more different with light winds which caused delays to the racing. Despite this, the 470 men’s class completed two further races and Great Britain’s Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield are still in gold medal position at the halfway mark.

After waiting around for the wind to fill in, racing finally got underway but for Rogers and Glanfield it was not a great start as they jumped the gun and were scored as OCS (On Course Side), along with nine other boats. Fortunately luck was on their side and as the wind shut off altogether their race was abandoned.

The race committee then managed to get two races underway in light breezes and Rogers and Glanfield scored an eighteenth which they followed up with a fifth place, which was good enough to see them maintain their overall lead, by a two point margin, from Paul Foerster and Kevin Burnham of America.

Rogers commented, “We are now halfway through the regatta and still winning but we have no more discards left and therefore no messing about. We had a bit of luck today when the race that we were over the start line in was abandoned, but we will now have to keep pushing all the way to the finish and the final race.”

It was also a good day for team mates Christina Bassadone and Katherine Hopson who made an amazing recovery in the first race of the day to come back from eighteenth place to finish fifth. Their form continued into race two and a sixth place finish puts them in medal contention at the halfway mark just four points away from a bronze medal.

Bassadone commented, “We are pretty relieved. It was a really tricky day on the water with lots of snakes and ladders and everyone was very up and down but we proved that it really wasn’t over until the last leg.” She continued, “We needed to have a good day to get back into the regatta and personally I put a lot of pressure on myself to do well today.”

After playing the waiting game yesterday, Great Britain’s Chris Draper and Olympic silver medallist Simon Hiscocks finally got their Olympic campaign underway, although only one out of a scheduled three races was completed. They got off to a great start and lead for most of the race until sailing into a hole in the wind and watching helplessly as the fleet sailed passed, they eventually finished ninth.

“It was a frustrating day today but we have to look at the bigger picture. We were leading all the way round and then it went wrong right at the end,” explained Draper. He continued, “I think we were sailing well. The guy that was winning finished twelfth and we were ninth – it was just that kind of day.”

There was barely enough wind for the Mistral windsurfer fleets, who again lost a days racing yesterday. In the women’s fleet Natasha Sturges sailed a great race in the tricky conditions to finish third, putting her in tenth place overall. Nick Dempsey also sailed well and was leading his race by a large margin when the wind collapsed forcing the race officers to abandon the racing, which was unfortunate for Dempsey. They failed to restart a race, due to lack of wind, and the fleet were sent ashore in the hope that they might be able to race after the 49ers had finished, but it was not to be.

Elsewhere on the race courses, Paul Goodison continued to plug away on his quest for Olympic glory and scored a 28th and a fifth which currently places him ninth overall and team mate Laura Baldwin had a tricky day and is currently lying in 20th place.

As the racing is now behind schedule all classes will be racing tomorrow in the hope to get back on track. It will be a big day in both the Finn and the Yngling classes where Great Britain is leading both disciplines, and Ben Ainslie as well as Shirley Robertson and crewmembers Sarah Ayton and Sarah Webb, will be desperate to hold onto their medal positions.

Racing is due to commence at 13 00 (local time).

Results after day 4:

470 Men
1, Nick Rogers/Joe Glanfield, GBR (2,3,9,4,(18),5) 23 pts
2, Paul Foerster/Kevin Burnham, USA (1,8,2,(15),10,4) 25 pts
3, Eugen Braslavets/Igor Matvienko, UKR (10,4,1,(DNF),9,7) 31 pts

470 Women
1, Sofia Bekatorou/Aimilia Tsoulfa, GRE (1,2,2,(13),1,1) 7 pts
2, Susanne Ward/Michaela Meehan, DEN (11,1,4,3,(13),8) 27 pts
3, Ingrid Petitjean/Nadege Douroux, FRA (8,3,5,7,7,(20)) 30 pts
GBR
5, Christina Bassadone/Katherine Hopson (5,14,(15),4,5,6) 34 pts

Mistral Men
1, Przemyslaw Miarczynski, POL (1) 1 pt
2, Joao Rodrigues, POR (2) 2 pt
3, Gal Fridman, ISR (3) 3 pts
GBR
11, Nick Dempsey (11) 11 pts

Mistral Women
1, Alessandra Sensini, ITA (7,1,6) 14 pts
2, Faustine Merret, FRA (2,13,1) 16 pts
3, Lai Shan Lee, HKG (3,8,5) 16 pts
GBR
10, Natasha Sturges (16,10,3) 29 pts

Laser
1, Robert Scheidt, BRA (3,8,1,3) 15 pts
2, Philippe Bergmans, BEL (9,4,5,14) 32 pts
3, Mate Arapov, CRO (6,11,2,22) 41 pts
GBR
9, Paul Goodison (13,3,28,5) 49 pts

Europe
1, Siren Sundby, NOR (1,3,5,1) 10 pts
2, Sarah Blanck, AUS (3,7,2,11) 23 pts
3, Signe Livbjerg, DEN (4,6,8,15) 33 pts
GBR
20, Laura Baldwin (21,14,10,23) 68 pts

49er
1, Marcin Czajkowski/Krzysztof Kierkowski, POL (1) 1 pts
2, Christoffer Sundby/Frode Bovim, NOR (2) 2 pts
3, Andre Fonseca/Rodrigo Duarte, BRA (3) 3 pts
GBR
9, Chris Draper/Simon Hiscocks (9) 9 pts

Yngling
1, Shirley Robertson/Sarah Ayton/Sarah Webb, GBR ((5),4,1,1,4,3) 13 pts
2, Dorte O. Jensen/Helle Jespersen/Christina Otzen, DEN (1,(14),5,5,5,6) 22 pts
3, Ruslana Taran/Ganna Kalinina/Svitlana Matevusheva, UKR ((10),3,9,3,7,2) 24 pts

Finn
1, Ben Ainslie, GBR (9,(DSQ),1,1,4,1) 16 pts
2, Rafael Trujillo, ESP ((8),3,3,6,2,3) 17 pts
3, Mateusz Kusznierewicz, POL (3,1,6,4,11,(OCS)) 25 pts

You can follow the racing online at www.gbrsailing.org.uk where you will get live updates from the dinghy park and the results as they come in, as well as all the gossip from the Team GB camp. You can also leave messages of support for the team and your comments on the racing.

Full results with mark by mark roundings are at sailing.org/olympics2004