Great start: Baur / Groy in the 49er
Improvements in Europe, 470s and Mistral women. The bad news: Kristin Wagner and her Yngling crew, hoping for a medal, moved up to fourth place overall, but increased the point gap to bronze.
"A great day." What else should Marcus Baur say? The Kiel architect and his crew Max Groy have met all expectations so far and could become the straw for German medal hopes. With places 2, 1 and 8, they moved up to the top of the ranking today. "We are really fast in this wind," said Baur. Up to eleven knots, the Sydney gold mast they put on the boat is almost unbeatable. So it was almost two day victories, because in the first race they were only two seconds, the length of a boat, separated from the Italian brothers Sibello.
The reopening of the procedure due to an obstruction in the first race was rejected by the jury, which means that nothing changes in the placement (ninth).
Bad day: Wagner / Höll / Lochbrunner in the Yngling
"Marcus' places are an incentive to follow suit," said Kristin Wagner, who cannot be really happy about her day today. But she managed to avert the impending disaster. In the first race she was so bad at the start that she had to pass behind the entire field. At the finish it was the penultimate, 15th place. "We tried hard to get ahead," said Wagner, "but there are races, that is, you just do it, you don't get into the rhythm."
"They wanted to drown themselves during the lunch break," said team boss Jochen Schümann, for whom it was "not a nice day on the water". He watched the Ynglings and Finns. "My active players tormented me, they sailed really badly."
Because after this mortgage, the Bavarian crew apparently wanted to do particularly well and pulled on the starting ship too early. After rounding the starting boat, they sailed far behind the fleet and even got a penalty ring at the windward mark because they passed Bermuda on the port tack behind the boat and touched it in the process. After the downwind, they were last, then the race to catch up began. "We sailed the turner clean," was Wagner's sober analysis. They finished fifth. Although they improved by one place to fourth in the overall ranking, they also increased the gap to bronze from three to nine points. "There is still a medal because luckily the others have messed up too," said the 33-year-old.
After eight races, the British top favorites around helmsman Shirley Robertson have established themselves at the top with 22 points and could secure the gold medal with tomorrow's two races before the final run. You didn’t get over the course flawlessly either, but of all of them you sail the most consistently. In second place are the Danes around Dorte Jensen with 29 points, who gave away a few meters in the second run of the day when the middle woman Helle Jespersen's riding belt broke and she took an involuntary bath in the Saronic Gulf. Third are currently the Russians around RuslanTaran (35 points).
Easy on it: PetrNiemann in Europe
Europe sailor PetrNiemann was surprisingly relaxed considering her results. Seventh and eleventh place today, ninth after six races. "I'm satisfied with my sailing, but not with my results," said the Berliner. She was super happy with her good start and also that she was once among the top ten. She finds the relatively small fields particularly difficult. "Mistakes have a much bigger impact here because everyone is so close together." Her advantage in the second half of the regatta is that, with twelfth place as the worst result, she does not yet have a real cancellation result. "From now on I can take more risks, just go to one side and hope to get to the top." She also justifies her looseness with the fact that she loves sailing off Athens. "It's warm, the water is a great color and you don't need neoprene."
In the 470s Stefanie Rothweiler and MonikLeu moved up to seventh place overall with an eleventh and a tenth place. With three remaining races they are separated from the bronze place by 17 points and they would have to sail sensationally to reach it. The Greeks Bekatorou / Tsoulf almost certainly have gold with 21 points ahead of second place.
Lucas Zellmer and Felix Krabbe lost a place in the overall ranking with the daily results ten and 23 (deleted result) and are now 15. "Yesterday we reached into our luck box (from 17th place to fifth), but we have that that goes down as well seen today, "said Felix Krabbe. Tenth place, the goal he set himself, is still possible. The battle for gold will be decided between the British and the Americans. After eight races, Rogers / Glanfield are six points ahead of Foerster / Burnham.
It was a black day for Michael Fellmann in the Finn dinghy: two 19th places, a total of 16. "The others could accelerate, I had a button in the sheet," said the Sulzberger. I mean: nothing worked. "The starts were okay, then I always got stuck." Great Britain's favorite Ben Ainslie is on the gold course, eight points ahead of Spaniard Rafael Trujillo. Mateusz Kusznierewicz from Poland follows in third place. However, the 1996 Savannah gold medalist is a bit behind with 43 points. Nevertheless, things could get exciting again between these three sailors, since all of them already have a strike value, Ainslie because of a disqualification, the other two because of early starts, and no one can afford a slip up. The beneficiary could be the Belgian Sebastien Godefroid, who is waiting in fourth place with 44 points.
For the female surfers, the prognosis of the team boss was confirmed: after the medal for Amelie Lux moved into an almost unreachable distance yesterday, she sailed up today liberated. With eighth place she improved to 17th place overall. "I am really happy, the knot has burst. I now have the feeling that it will work after all," said the 27-year-old from Oldenburg.
Her surf colleague Toni Wilhelm again fell far short of expectations with places 27 and 25 (overall 26th).
In the lasers (not a German starter), the Austrian Andreas Geritzer (15 points) leads after six races, ahead of the favorite Robert Scheidt (BRA, 19).
Tomorrow we will sail again in all classes (the regattas of the tornadoes start on August 21st, those of the star boats on August 22nd.