49er and 49erFX
New Zealand’s Alex Maloney and Molly Meech enjoyed the best of the day in the 49erFX, sailing at the front of the pack in all three races.
A first, second and a third has pushed them up to the final podium spot, seven points off leaders Charlotte Dobson and Sophie Ainsworth (GBR) who took two bullets and a sixth.
The 49erFX were the first fleet on the water on Saturday and Meech was relieved to get some good competition in, “On the first day we took a long time to warm up and get some racing practice in and then we have been waiting so long on shore that both of us have been getting really competitive and been dying to get some races in.
“Our last few Medal Races haven’t been our best but we have learned the lessons from them and we will go in to tomorrow with a better strategy to nail it.”
They need to overturn seven and five point deficits over the first placed Brits and second placed Swedes, Julia Gross and Cecilia Jonsson, to truly nail it. Whatever happens though, the trip to the London 2012 Olympic venue has proved beneficial. Meech concluded, “It definitely wasn’t the Weymouth that we were hoping for with the wind, but any type of racing with any structure is beneficial and we have learnt a lot.
“We have put a lot of time in to our starting and it’s slowly paying off. The racing that we have had so far has been really valuable.”
The 49er fleet started to reach the shore at 20:30 as the sun set. New Zealand’s Logan Dunning Beck and Jack Simpson reached the shore the happiest team after four races and will wear the yellow bibs in the Medal Race.
They are eight points clear of Poland’s Lukasz Przybytek and Pawel Kolodzinski.
