Setback for Giles Scott as New Zealand’s Josh Junior extendes his lead in the Finn Gold Cup to 16 points, with just the medal race to sail.
Junior now has a 21 point lead ahead of Scott who slips to fourth place overall and out of contention for the title.
Two of three races scheduled were completed with Day 4 leader Junior picking up a 18, 8 and Nicholas Heiner, from The Netherlands, finishing 8, 3.
Heiner’s third place in race nine moved him up into second place and a chance of gold if he can outwit Junior in the medal race.
The battle over the other medals will be decided between Heiner, third placed Zsombor Berecz, Scott, and New Zealand’s Andy Maloney.
Berecz won the first race of the day, leading the race from start to finish.
He battled throughout the first lap with Britain’s Ed Wright, who dropped back to seventh at the end, while Australia’s Jake Lilley had his best race of the championship so far and finished second.
Race 9 also got underway the first time in 13-15 knots with Spain’s Joan Cardona leading at the first top mark ahead of Australia’s Oliver Tweddell and Heiner.
By the bottom gate Alejandro Muscat, from Spain, had taken over the lead with Turk, Alican Kaynar, in second and Cardona back in third.
Kaynar built his lead at the final top mark to take out the race win with Cardona crossing in second ahead of Heiner.
Britain’s Ed Wright and Henry Wetherell miss the medal race top 10 cut.
Hot racing was on the cards for the penultimate day on Friday with Melbourne putting on one of its hottest December days on record and with Saturday’s medal race top ten to be decided.
Finn Gold Cup – Leading results after 9 races (60 entries)
1st NZL24 Josh JUNIOR -16 8 – – 30 pts
2nd NED89 Nicholas HEINER 8 3 – – 46 pts
3rd HUN40 Zsombor BERECZ 1 13 – – 49 pts
4th GBR41 Giles SCOTT 5 -17 – – 51 pts
5th NZL61 Andy MALONEY -21 6 – – 61 pts
6th AUS1 Jake LILLEY 2 4 – – 70 pts
7th CAN18 Tom RAMSHAW 4 9 – – 75 pts
8th CRO10 Nenad BUGARIN 6 -25 – – 82 pts
9th ESP26 Joan CARDONA MÉNDEZ 22 2 – – 86 pts
10th TUR21 Alican KAYNAR 11 1 – – 92 pts
11th ESP7 Alejandro MUSCAT 19 5 – – 93 pts
12th FRA112 Jonathan LOBERT 12 11 – – 101 pts
13th SUI1 Nils THEUNINCK 17 23 – – 105 pts
14th GBR11 Ed WRIGHT 7 18 – – 115 pts
15th CZE5 Ondrej TEPLY 3 21 – – 123 pts
16th FRA17 Fabian PIC 13 22 – – 135 pts
17th SWE33 Max SALMINEN 20 27 – – 137 pts
18th CRO369 Milan VUJASINOVIC 26 20 – – 137 pts
19th GRE77 Ioannis MITAKIS 18 16 – – 147 pts
20th USA91 Luke MULLER -33 14 – – 149 pts
21st CRO1 Josip OLUJIC 9 31 – – 155 pts
22nd GBR71 Henry WETHERELL 30 7 – – 160 pts
RSS – Posts