New Zealand sailors Isaac McHardie and William McKenzie are strong contenders going into tomorrow’s medal race in the men’s skiff (49er).
With the medal race counting for double points, positions can change quickly. At present the New Zealanders are in third place on 76 points. Spain lead with 68, followed by Ireland 73. The USA is looming behind New Zealand on 80, so it’s a fluid situation.
The New Zealanders, who were third going into today’s racing, opened with a win to climb back to the top of the leaderboard, but had disappointing 10th and 15th placings to slide back to third place overall.
McKenzie said at the end of the day, “We're stoked to be in a position to medal even if the last race didn't quite go to plan. It's all to race for tomorrow. We'll leave everything out there and hopefully we can make New Zealand proud.”
In the women’s skiff (49er), Jo Aleh and Molly Meech, after their strong second day, had placings of 14, 8, 7 today to lift themselves into 7th overall. With the top 10 crews qualifying for tomorrow’s double-points medal race they’ll be back in action, not something that looked likely after their forgettable first day of competition.
“We thought it was our last sail,” said Meech. “We’re pretty stoked. Today we didn’t have a good start, but then we put together two solid races.”
Aleh said the pair were busy celebrating their last sail when they learned they were into the medal race. “Now we get to do it all again. We’ll go out and fight for everything.”
In the men’s windsurfing, Josh Armit, who began the day 10th, made some important gains. With placings of 11, 2, 6 and 4 today, he has lifted himself into fifth place with 50 points. Australian Grae Morris leads with 41, followed by Poland (42), Israel (44) and the Netherlands (47), so it’s tight at the top.
There’s still a lot of racing left in this event, which ends with a series of quarter-finals, semi-finals and final for the leading boats.
In the women’s windsurfing, Veerle ten Have was lagging in 16th position going into today, but solid placings of 11, 3, 5, 3 have lifted her to 8th position and still in contention.