Sailing at Rio 2016 Day 8: From 0 to 30+ knots in 10 minutes
by Mark Jardine 15 Aug 2016 22:16 BST
8-18 August 2016
Rio's weather is difficult to read... unless your name is Ian Walker. The Medal Race course had no wind whatsoever for most of the afternoon, but the double Olympic silver medallist and Volvo Ocean Race winner had it spot on.
As it was, the Race Officer had probably seen the same forecast as he'd sent the ten Laser Radial sailors out to the course in no wind, in anticipation of getting a race away ahead of the 1630 cut-off time.
The wind went from zero to gusts of 36 knots in minutes, leaving the organisers little choice but to raise AP over A and abandon racing for the day. I'm sure though that the viewers, and probably most of the sailors, would have loved to see the medal race held in the big breeze.
The Women's Laser Radial and Men's Laser Medal Races are now scheduled to take place on Tuesday, together with the Finn and Nacra 17 Medal Races.
There was racing elsewhere, outside of Guanabara Bay the 49er and 49er FX fleets held 3 more races. The 470 fleets tried to
49er
New Zealand's Peter Burling & Blair Tuke had a great day on the Copacabana course with a 2,3,1 scoreline which has enabled them to open up an 18 point lead at the top of the leaderboard. Germany's Erik Heil & Thomas Ploessel are in 2nd overall on 39 points while the London 2012 gold medallists, Australia's Nathan Outteridge & Iain Jensen have moved up to 3rd, but are 15 points off 2nd overall.
The big movers of the day were the French pair of Julien d'Ortoli & Noe Delpech who won two of today's races, moving up to 4th overall.
The Irish duo, Ryan Seaton & Matthew Mcgovern have dropped to 7th overall, just ahead of the British team of Dylan Fletcher-Scott & Alain Sign who are clawing their way up the rankings after their poor start to the event.
49er FX
On the Niterói course is was a great day for the Spanish team of Tamara Echegoyen Dominguez & Berta Betanzos Moro, posting a 4,1,1 scoreline to lead overall. New Zealand's Alexandra Maloney & Molly Meech are just 4 points off the lead with Brazil's Martine Soffiatti Grael & Kahena Kunze just a point further back.
Great Britain's Charlotte Dobson & Sophie Ainsworth are by no means out of touch with the medal placings in 5th overall and USA's Paris Henken & Helena Scutt are within the top ten. Ireland's Andrea Brewster & Saskia Tidey's challenge is fading a bit and they need to get back to the form they showed in the first 3 races to make it into Thursday's medal race.
Photos to follow as soon as possible...
Read all the Rio 2016 news, see the schedule and find useful links at www.yachtsandyachting.com/rio2016