Yachting-Live

Testing Conditions For Final Stage
The wind tested the skills of the racing committee and sailors for the first day of finals in the 40th Semaine Olympique Française in Hyeres. Some top names scored big points while light wind specialists were able to show their full potential. The race inside the race, for Olympic selections, intensified between some teams. Thursday will see the last opportunity for qualifying into the medal race.

It was a totally different day this morning in Hyeres with the palm trees slightly moving with the remains of a dying Mistral. The wind shifted all day from the south-west to the East to reinforce in a sea breeze by mid afternoon. Regatta PRO, Ion Echave had already announced, in the early team leader’s meeting, that the day could be unpredictable. The intention of the race committees to start 2 to 3 races in each class, could take all day and it did. Starting on time at 11am, the 45 races, run in the 6 racing areas, ended up 8 hours later. The committees spent the day moving the marks around to follow the wind.

Some top names didn’t make the cut into the Gold fleet this morning. In the 470 men, Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page (AUS) could not discard an earlier disqualification after a starboard incident with a Russian boat and raced in the silver fleet. British 49er sailors Morrison/Rhodes who had twice suffered from gear failure could not come back to the score with only four races sailed and no discard. The vice-World champions missed as well the Gold fleet and decided to end their regatta to go home and rest. The same decision was made by Athens Gold medallist Faustine Merret (FRA) after a slow start in the regatta.

Racing will resume on Thursday in all 11 events. — Corinne McKenzie

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 26th, 2008 at 9:57 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.