Three Events Advance to Medal Race

Aarhus, Denmark (August 8, 2018) – Giant Swede Max Salminen drove home his advantage in the eye of the storm in the Bay of Aarhus today to win the last race of the day in the Finn class and establish a potentially decisive eight-point lead for the medal race tomorrow.

A hot and humid day seven at the Hempel Sailing World Championships Aarhus 2018 saw competitors coming to the business end and some of the big names are rising to the occasion, but there are some notable absences from the top 10 qualifying for the medal race.

The 29-year-old Salminen, who won gold in the Star class at the London 2012 Olympics, was sixth after moving to the Finn in at the Rio 2016 Olympics and won his first class world championships in the Finn last year. He will have enjoyed the final downwind in the lashing rain – arriving 20 minutes ahead of the forecast – as the wind jumped from single digits to 23 knots, gusting 30.

But the top six are all in with a realistic chance of winning in the winner-takes-all medal race, where points count double. Four points separate Hungary’s Zsombor Berecz, New Zealand’s Josh Junior, Canada’s Tom Ramshaw and the Dutch rivals Nicholas Heiner and Pieter-Jan Postma (fourth and sixth respectively).

There will, however, be no Jorge Zarif, the Brazilian, who just missed out on a medal in Rio and has been the dominant force in the Finn this year. He has had a disastrous last two days. America’s Caleb Paine, the bronze medallist in Rio, had looked well set after sixth in the first race of the day, but a 33rd place in the last race left him 12th.

The same fate nearly befell Great Britain’s Ed Wright. At the start of the day, Wright, had a seven-point lead on three sailors close behind. With the potential for no races in the light airs that kept them on shore for most of the day, he was looking at a healthy lead going into the medal race tomorrow. A 27th and 19th place put paid to that and almost saw him miss out completely.

Denmark has no one in the top 10, but the Finn will be followed very closely by a knowledgeable home crowd in tomorrow’s stadium race. It is the class their Olympic legend, Paul Elvstrøm – who won four Olympic golds – made his and Denmark’s own in the 1950s and 1960. Danish sailors have won the Finn Gold Cup ten times.

Great Britain took that mantle under their own colossus, Ben Ainslie, and then Giles Scott. But the absence of the Scott, the Olympic champion and four-time winner of the Finn Gold Cup (the world championships), away on other projects, has seen others rise and Salminen will be seeking to prove that it is his and Sweden’s time.

Schedule: The top ten in the Finn, Men’s 470, and Women’s 470 will advance tomorrow to the medal race. Additionally, the results thus far have confirmed the countries that will advance to Tokyo 2020 from these three classes (click here). Also tomorrow, the remaining nine fleets will continue or complete their final series to determine the top ten to advance to their medal races.

Event details – Entry list – Results – Facebook – YouTube

Watch: Live video – Tracking

Additional classes:

Men’s 470
Teams completed the final race of their gold medal fleet series today. The Swedish 2018 European Champions, Anton Dahlberg and Frederik Bergström, could only manage eighth place and saw their lead cut to six points over two chasing crews. They are in touching distance of their first world championship title but will have their hands full watching Japan’s Tetsuya Isosaki and Akira Takayanagi and France’s Kevin Peponnet and Jermie Mion who are level on points.

All three will have to be careful that they do not get so wrapped up in their own battles that they let Australia’s Mat Belcher and William Ryan, the silver medallists at the Rio 2016 Olympics, slip past. The Australians could only finish tenth and are 13 points behind the leader, but if anyone knows how to win a medal race it is Belcher, who won gold at the London 2012 Olympics, and the 2011 World Championships in Perth and 2014 World Championships in Santander.

Laser
The fleet could only manage one race and will need to race once more tomorrow on the reserve day to finish the series ahead of the medal race on August 10. Pavlos Kontides, who became the first-ever Olympic medallist for Cyprus (in any sport) with his silver at the London 2012 Olympics, is leading after finishing second.

Australia’s Matthew Wearn is three points behind, able to discard his 15th place today, and his compatriot, the Rio 2016 Olympic champion, Tom Burton is a further two points back. New Zealand’s Rio bronze medallist, Sam Meech, the long-time leader, slipped further back with 13th today and is 13 points off the lead. But the last race tomorrow could still change everything.

Laser Radial
The fleet could only manage one race and will to race twice more tomorrow on the reserve day to finish the series ahead of the medal race on August 10. In difficult and shifting conditions before racing was abandoned, there were some big double-digit scores at the top of the leaderboard. Just one point separates the top three.

Leader Paige Railey (USA) finished 37th out of the 60 boats and third-placed Anne-Marie Rindom, Denmark’s Rio 2016 bronze medallist, 44th. The flying Dutchwoman, Marit Bouwmeester, lies fifth, 19 points behind the leader. But no one will be writing off the woman who won gold at the Rio 2016 Olympics and the 2011 World Championships in Perth and 2014 World Championships in Santander.

Women’s 49erFX
Austria’s Tanja Frank (the Rio 2016 Olympics bronze medallist in the Nacra) and Lorena Abicht were serene in the rapidly shifting winds and fortunes as others in the leading group faltered. They finished top overall after winning the last of the first three races in the gold fleet with three to come tomorrow.

Local favourites, Ida Marie Baad Nielsen and Marie Thusgaard Olsen started the gold medal fleet races today 10 points ahead overall, but a penalty turn on the first upwind left them near the back. They managed to finish 18th in the 30-strong field, but lost the lead it was a sign of things to come as they slipped to fourth overall.

49er
The first race was abandoned – no racing was possible. They made it in just as the storm front hit the Bay of Aarhus.

Men’s Kite
All three spots in the Men’s Kiteboard remain the same as yesterday.

Women’s Kite
Slight change in the Women’s leaderboard, Daniela Moroz (USA) now leads, while Elena Kalinina (RUS) sits in second and Alexia Fancelli (FRA) in third.

Event details – Entry list – Results – Facebook – YouTube

Watch: Live video – Tracking

North American Update:
Paige Railey (USA) has risen to the lead of the Laser Radial (8 races), Charlie Buckingham (USA) steps up to 9th in the Laser (9 races) while Tom Ramshaw (CAN) slips to 5th in the Finn (10 races).

Stu McNay/ Dave Hughes (USA) remain in 9th in the 470 M (10 races), Nikole Barnes/ Lara Dallman-Weiss (USA) finish in 37th in the 470 W (7 races), Stephanie Roble/ Margaret Shea (USA) are 22nd in the 49erFX (9 races), and Chris Rast/ Trevor Burd (USA) sit at 32nd in the 49er (8 races).

Ignacio Berenguer (MEX) is 57th in the RS:X M (6 races) and Farrah Hall (USA) dropped to 44th in the RS:X W (6 races). In the Kite fleets, Daniela Moroz (USA) is 1st (10 races) and Evan Heffernan (USA) is 18th (13 races).

The Sailing World Championships, held once every four years for all ten Olympic classes, has 1,400 sailors from 85 nations in close to 1,000 boats for competition. There are also two kiteboarding events competing, which along with the Olympic classes, have their competition staggered from August 2 to 12.

In addition to World titles, the event is the first and largest country qualifier for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games with 40% of the places being decided. For information on how nations qualify for the 2020 Olympics, click here.

Source: World Sailing