The first day of Medal races will take place this morning at the Hempel World Cup Series in Genoa Saturday – conditions allowing!
The first Medal races will be for the men’s 49er, women’s 49erFX and and the mixed crew Nacra 17 multihull, and are now scheduled to start at 10:15 local time (09:15 UK). If conditions experienced throughout the last week are anything to go by, the actual timing could be flexible.
The Italian venue unfortunately suffered from poor wind conditions for the early rounds, and it will be a case of ‘fingers-crossed’ as we go into the final two days of competition.
Although most of the British Sailing Team are busy elsewhere, there will be some British interest in two of the Medal races today, with Ben Saxton and Nicola Boniface holding the lead in the Nacra 17 event and James Peters and Fynn Sterritt in third place in the 49er final.
The first Medal Race was for the women’s 49erFX. A slow race in the light, shifty breeze.
Odile van Aanholt and Marieke Jongens of Holland won the FX medal race to clinch the Gold. Silver went to Carlotta Omari and Matilda Distefano of Italy, and bronze to Stephanie Roble and Margaret Shea of the USA.
The second Medal Race was the men’s 49er.
Here the gold went to the Australian pair David and Lachy Gilmour, silver to Isaac McHardie and William McKenzie of New Zealand and bronze to the ‘other’ Kiwi pair Peter Burling and Blair Tuke.
Final Medal race for Saturday was for the Nacra 17
A real nail-biter, with Spain’s Iker Martinez and Olga Maslivets snatching the gold from Britain’s Ben Saxton and Nicola Boniface, with bronze going to Santiago Lange and Cecilia Carranza Saroli of Argentina.
While the first Medals are being decided, the other five classes will be completing their fleet racing to decide who makes the cut for Sunday’s Medal races for the Finn, Laser, Radial and 470 classes – the top ten go through in each event.
The ones to watch here are the two 470 classes, where British crews are just outside the top ten at present.
