French Olympic Sailing Week – One day to go

With just one day of racing to go at 2010 French Olympic Sailing Week, New Zealand crews are in the top seven in both the Laser Radial and the Women’s 470 events.

Sara Winther retains fifth in the Radial fleet, while Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie have shot up the board into seventh in the double-hander.

Image: Sara Winther in action by Effetts Mer; Guillaume Durand

Despite the light winds continuing there was just enough to avoid the serious interruptions suffered over previous days allowing for more races in all fleets. The westerly breeze was reportedly around five to seven knots.

Three races were staged for the women in the Laser Radial fleet. Winther recorded a 22nd, a third and an eighth which sees her retain her fifth position on the leader-board. Points remain tight around her meaning it’s all on for the final day of competition and the medal race tomorrow.

Winther, on 43, has equal points with GBR’s Dobson in fourth, with Reyes [ESP] just one point clear in third place currently. The two leaders have a reasonable margin, with Winther and company needing to make up around ten points to chase down gold or silver.

Over in the Women’s 470 a set of three solid results in racing overnight sees kiwis Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie rocket from 17th position up to seventh on the leader board. While a podium finish looks almost unreachable from here, Aleh and Powrie have the ability to gain further places if they finish well.

Four races for the Laser sailors overnight results in more shuffling on the leader board with three of the six kiwi entries sailing in gold fleet. Andy Maloney lies 15th, Andrew Murdoch in 18th and Josh Junior is in 33rd.

The regatta concludes tomorrow in France.

The New Zealand team is supported by coaches Laurie Jury and Mark Howard.

Further updates on the New Zealand team will be issued as racing continues, and full results and news are available on the regatta website.

2010 French Olympic Sailing Week
New Zealand’s Current Standings

Women’s Match Racing (22 entries)
Samantha Osborne, Raynor Smeal and Jenna Hansen (Silver round robin: 3 wins/2 losses)

Laser (141 entries)
Gold fleet
15th Andy Maloney (18, 19, 14, 20, 6, 31, 7, 20, 10)
18th Andrew Murdoch (8, 4, 34, 6, 13, 10, 34, 22, 26)
33rd Josh Junior (1, 27, 4, 27, 25, 36, 12, 31, 32)
Silver fleet
49th Mike Bullot (7, 36, BFD, 23, 1, 1, 2, 36, 7)
51st Sam Meech (24, 26, 15, 16, 6, 29, 7, 2, 42)
54th Max Andrews (36, 4, 21, 26, 7, 30, 9, 12, 25)

Laser Radial (80 entries)
Gold fleet
5th Sara Winther – (4, 13, 6, 9, 22, 3, 8)

470 Men (90 entries)
Silver fleet
52nd Paul Snow-Hansen and Jason Saunders – (38, 32, 8, 22, 22, BFD, 5, 3)

470 Women (44 entries)
7th Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie – (2, 17, 22, 11, 7, 8, 2)

RS:X Women (39 entries)
29th Jazmine Lynch – (10, 23, 33, 27, 34, 24, 31)

Finn (52 entries)
29th Matt Coutts – (BFD, 25, 24, 27, 21, 20, 40)

New Zealand’s Coaching Team
Laurie Jury
Mark Howard