Sailors start to eye medals

New Zealand moved closer to a couple of medals at the Olympic sailing events today.

Nothing is guaranteed in the unpredictable world of international sailing, but Peter Burling and Blair Tuke in the men’s 49er and Josh Junior in the men’s finn did their medal chances no harm with some fine work today.

Tuke and Burling, the defending Olympic champions, shared top position on the points table before today’s racing. They then put together finishes of 5, 2 (when they led most of the race) and 11 to grab the lead outright with only the medal race remaining.

The New Zealanders are on 52 points, while in second place on 56 are Britons Dylan Fletcher and Stuart Bithell and Spaniards Iago Lopez Marra and Diego Botin le Chever.

Josh Junior clearly enjoyed his day off from racing yesterday because he returned looking refreshed and eager. He won the first race of the day and was 4th  in the second. There are two races plus the medal race left in the finn competition and Junior sits in fifth place with 38 points. The 19-strong fleet is led by Briton Giles Scott on 20, but Junior is only nine points off third place.

“It was an important day for me,” he said later. “I haven’t had too many goon ones here so it was time to start racking up a few good placings to get me closer to the medals.”

He said he had tried to be more proactive and make good decisions, and had been helped by a couple of slices of luck that went his way.

“I just want to lock in two good races tomorrow so I can go into the medal race with a real chance of winning a medal.”

The women’s 49er team of Alex Maloney and Molly Meech, silver medallists in Rio five years ago, had a mixed day with placings of 6, 20 and 6, which leaves them lying 12th in the fleet of 21 with one race plus the medal race to go.

It was a similarly mixed bag for the Nacra crew of Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson, whose three races today produced placings of 15, 9 and 18, leaving them 12th overall in the fleet of 20.