It was the first of the two finals’ races day today in Brest, France and morale had to be strong to manage the time spent waiting for the wind. But as the sky cleared up and the wind shyly tried to build up, the announcements on the race village kept the same song as no steady wind entered the Bay of Brest today. [more]
As the 270 competitors kept themselves busy playing ball or going through their races from the previous days and doing interviews with the press, the organisers waited until 5pm local time to cancel the RS:One and RS:X Silver fleets’ races. The RS:One enjoyed a Pulsar race course yesterday, a slalom in teams that is shorter, very dynamic and raced close to shore. The organisers are hoping to set the same race course for the medal races on Sunday.
The Gold Fleets of the RS:X class got lucky as the wind came in and the decision to go ahead with the regattas was taken at 6:30pm with a signal for the Youth fleet 30 minutes later and the Men’s and Women’s races 45 minutes later.
The Youth Boys RS:X races didn’t bring any change in the top four. However, fantastic jump in the ranking for Evgeny Ayvazyan from Russia who finished 2nd of the first race and won the second one and went from 19th in the overall provisional ranking to 6th! The performance for Frenchman Clement Bourgeois was slightly smaller but still to be noticed as he gained 4 places and now lies in 5th after a podium in the second race. The top four still belongs, in that order to Argentina’s Bautista Saudibet-Brikner, Poland’s Radoslaw Furmanski, Hong Kong’s Chun Ting Lee and Britain’s Kieran Martin.
In the Youth Girls RS:X competition, Hadar Heller from Israel finished 3rd and 4th which opened the way for Britain’s Noelle Finch and Imogen Sills. Though they all stay on the podium, the order is now Noelle Finch in the lead followed by Imogen Sills in second place and Hadar Heller third.
Nick Dempsey probably wishes tonight that the racing had been cancelled as he lost his lead today though he remains 3rd on the podium after finishing 10th and 29th today. This turned to the advantage of Przemyslaw Miarczynski from Poland who takes the lead followed by Byron Kokkalanis from Greece. Tomorrow’s races will be hard fought, no doubt!
As for the ladies, it was a good day for Charline Picon. Finishing second in the second race makes her climb to second place in the provisional overall ranking with Maja Dziarnowska from Poland still first and Maayan Davidovich still third. Bryony Shaw from Britain, despite a third place in the first race leaves the podium. Blanca Manchon sits in 5th.
