Sydney 2000 - Olympic Sailing Day Eight
by Nigel Cherrie 24 Sep 2000 10:17 BST
ROGERS AND GLANFIELD STAY IN MEDAL ZONE WITH THREE RACES TO GO
While the Mistral men, women and Tornado classes all completed their
Olympic Regattas on Sydney Harbour this afternoon, Team GB's 470 men's crew
of Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield kept in touch with the leading trio
despite using their discard in the first race of the day.
A frustrating nineteenth in the first race this afternoon was followed by a
sixth place in series race eight. "We had a bad start in the first race
which is always a bad start!" commented Rogers. "We were about fifteenth at
the top mark where as some of the people we beat off the line hooked the
right and led at the top mark. After the second upwind we were ninth and
but on the next beat we missed a big shift to the right which dropped us
down to fifteenth and on the final run the wind filled in from behind and
pushed everyone up to us so we were right at the back. The frustrating
thing was that it was all so close. The whole fleet was bow to stern the
whole way round. We were ninth at one point and we would normally expect to
hold that and that was countable.By the end of race ninth was still only
fifty yards away," explained Nick.
"We're not a long way off the top three and when the second discard comes
in tomorrow we'll drop off more points than the top three will. If we can
have a good day tomorrow and one of them has a bad race, which isn't
unrealistic, it sets it up for the last race," added Joe.
Meanwhile, Hugh Styles and Adam May completed the Tornado series in sixth
place after a promising start but have already vowed to be back next time.
"We're pleased that we are medal contenders but we're disappointed that we
had one bad day that didn't go according to plan and took us out of that
equation and dropped us down the pack," said Hugh.
"Based on the fact we've only been sailing together for one year in a
totally different class to what we are used to sailing, sixth is a pretty
respectable result and its one of the best British Tornado Games results
since 1976 (Reg White's Gold Medal). It was good to end on a high note
today as well," commented crewman Adam May.
At midday tomorrow Ian Barker and Simon Hiscocks will go head to head with
Jonathan and Charlie McKee (USA) for the 49er Silver medal in the final
race on course area B.
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