49er European Championship at Porto - Day 5
by International 49er Class 12 Jul 2015 08:53 BST
7-12 July 2015
There's one day to go in the men's 49er event, and Pete Burling and Blair Tuke have been knocked off the top of the leaderboard after a protest by their arch rivals Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen. The finishing order at the end of racing was Burling 1st, Outteridge 2nd and Pink/Bithell in 3rd overall. After Outteridge's successful protest against the Kiwis and the Brits, the new top three is Outteridge 1st, with Poland's Tomasz Januszewski and Jacek Nowak in 2nd, and Burling relegated to 3rd overall. The Brits have been knocked down to 8th overall.
The tide of this regatta seems to be turning against the Kiwis, who made hard work of the starts and scored 12,9,21 while the chasing Aussies banked a much more useful 4,4,9. Best performers of the day were Justus Schmidt and Max Boehme, with the young Germans improving throughout the three races with a 7,5,1 score. "We started on port tack underneath the starboard tackers so we could get out to the right early," said Schmidt, who had seen his team mates and rivals for Olympic selection, Erik Heil and Thomas Ploessel, pull off a similar unconventional start to win the first race of the day.
Schmidt's consistency elevates him to 6th overall and within striking distance of the podium. Behind the Kiwi leaders, Outteridge is 2nd overall on 70 points, and Great Britain's John Pink and Stu Bithell in 3rd overall on 72 points. All three top teams were in for a late evening with a flurry of protests against each other.
Everything is up for grabs on Sunday with three Gold Fleet races yet to take place, followed by another Douro River Medal Race. The forecast is for medium airs, and you can watch all the action on the live TV broadcast which is scheduled for the start of racing on Sunday at 1025am local time. Tune in and watch the drama on 49er.org.
For all the event details, highlights, interviews, results, photos, tracking and more, head to 49er.org/event/2015-european-championship