Hannah Mills and Eilidh McIntyre top the women’s leaderboard after three more races on day 4 at the 470 World Championships in Enoshima, Japan.
The British pair crowned a brilliant day with a 1, 2, 1, scoreline to take a five point lead ahead of Ai Kondo and Miho Joshioka (10,1,2) of Japan.
These two teams now have a 22 point advantage over the rest of the fleet, with Elena Berta and Bianca Caruo (3,13,4) of Italy now in third place.
In the men’s championship Matt Belcher and Will Ryan of Australia squeezed past Spain’s Jordi Xammer and Nicolas Rodriguez to take a one point lead.
Xammer and Rodriguez won two races, but a seventh place in the second race of the day was enough to allow Belcher and Ryan, with a consistant 2, 2, 3, scoreline, to move into a narrow lead.
In third place, and eight points back, are Anton Dahlberg and and Fredrik Bergstrom (5,9,2) of Sweden.
Panagiotis Mantis and Pavlos Kagialis of Greece were the day’s other race winner, they are fifth overall.

Britain’s Luke Patience and Chris Grube blew what was looking to be their best day (3,5) when they were caught by the black flag in the final race of the day . . . but still improved to 14th overall.
Conditions were ideal with sun and wWind of 9-11 knots, with wind and waves increasing as the day went on.
470 Women – Leaders after 8 races (39 entries)
1st GBR 1 Hannah MILLS and Eilidh MCINTYRE 1 -18 1 9 9 1 2 1 – – 24 pts
2nd JPN 1 Ai KONDO YOSHIDA and Miho YOSHIOKA 10 2 3 1 -15 10 1 2 – – 29 pts
3rd ITA 6 Elena BERTA and Bianca CARUSO 11 -15 10 6 4 3 13 4 – – 51 pts
4th POL 11 Agnieszka SKRZYPULEC and Jolanta OGAR 13 1 4 2 10 9 14 -18 – – 53 pts
5th FRA 9 Camille LECOINTRE and Aloïse RETORNAZ -26 4 5 12 1 20 10 3 – – 55 pts
6th CHN 621 Mengxi WEI and Haiyan GAO 8 16 9 5 8 2 -20 12 – – 60 pts
7th SLO 64 Tina MRAK and Veronika MACAROL 9 -22 2 22 2 6 12 9 – – 62 pts
8th ESP 18 Silvia MAS DEPARES and Patricia CANTERO 3 3 21 DSQ 14 15 4 7 – – 67 pts
9th AUS 5 Nia JERWOOD and Monique DEVRIES 7 12 -27 15 19 4 8 11 – – 76 pts
10th GRE 216 Maria BOZI and Rafailina KLONARIDOU 5 20 14 13 6 16 5 -21 – – 79 pts
470 Men – Leaders after 8 races (52 entries)
1st AUS 11 Mathew BELCHER and Will RYAN -4 4 2 1 2 2 2 3 – – 16 pts
2nd ESP 44 Jordi XAMMAR and Nicolas RODRIGUEZ 5 -9 1 1 1 1 7 1 – – 17 pts
3rd SWE 349 Anton DAHLBERG and Fredrik BERGSTRÖM 3 2 6 2 5 5 -9 2 – – 25 pts
4th FRA 27 Kevin PEPONNET and Jeremie MION 7 5 4 5 1 7 -12 6 – – 35 pts
5th GRE 1 Panagiotis MANTIS and Pavlos KAGIALIS -18 13 7 4 3 6 1 4 – – 38 pts
6th ITA 757 Giacomo FERRARI and Giulio CALABRÒ 2 11 1 3 4 9 -14 10 – – 40 pts
7th FRA 79 Hippolyte MACHETTI and Sidoine DANTÈS 3 5 3 8 3 -23 6 15 – – 43 pts
8th JPN 11 Kazuto DOI and Naoya KIMURA 6 8 5 4 10 -22 4 12 – – 49 pts
9th JPN 20 Keiju OKADA and Jumpei HOKAZONO 1 7 3 13 4 16 -18 7 – – 51 pts
10th JPN 7 Tetsuya ISOZAKI and Akira TAKAYANAGI 2 14 11 10 7 4 -15 5 – – 53 pts