Women’s 470: Spanish sailors in a strong position after eight races
Japanese duo Ai Kondo and Wakako Tabata, on 44 points, have some serious catching up to do for a chance at winning the Worlds and will need to perform strongly on Saturday. Three points behind are Gil Cohen and Vered Buskila (ISR) in third.
Martine Grael and Isabel Swan’s (BRA) had a perfect start to Friday’s racing although were trumped by Giulia Conti and Giovanna Micol (ITA) in the second race of Day 14.
Despite being beaten to the fourth mark, Grael and Swan (BRA) maintained sizeable leads throughout race 7, finishing first with a 15 second lead.
Yuka Yoshisako and Noriko Okuma (JPN), Ingrid Petitjean and Nadege Douroux (FRA) and Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie (NZL) battled it out from the fifth mark, with Yoshisako and Okuma finishing second closely followed by Aleh and Powrie.
The world number 12 and overall fleet leaders, Pacheco and Betanzos had their worst race so far in the competition in race 7, but this 27th placing is currently their discard.
While Grael and Swan (BRA) lead the charge in race 8, they were overtaken before the last mark and finished 10 seconds behind winners Conti and Micol (ITA).
Grael said they aim to keep giving the best they can in each race.
“Before in the other races we were having very bad starts which were holding us a lot back but today we had very good starts and I think it was very exciting to have very good starts so we kept pushing on the race and got good results,” she said.
The surprise of the day went to Henriette Koch and Lene Sommer (DEN), who enjoyed their Perth 2011 ISAF World Championships personal best of third place in race 8.
Koch said she thought it was their first really good day.
“Overall we are pretty disappointed, we were aiming for a really good result but the first couple of days we weren't really on it. We had some bad luck on top of it and we're just trying to recover,” she said.
With only two races to go and a fleet overall placing of 15, World number one duo, Erin Maxwell and Isabelle Kinsolving (USA), have an almost impossible task ahead of them to secure a place in the top 10 fleet for Sunday’s (18 December) Medal Race.
Erin Maxwell said: “We’ll just have a good enough day tomorrow (Saturday) and hopefully make the medal race.”