Elsewhere today there was an impressive performance from British Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie. He won both today’s races and forged ahead on the road to the gold medal, leading the overall classification in his class.

Here is the picture of the second day of the Athens 2003 Regatta in more detail, with the general rankings in today’s classes:

In the 470 Women’s, the Greek champions Sofia Bekatorou and Emilia Tsoulfa dropped to second place in the overall placement with 30 points, after being disqualified for a false start in the third race – along with six other craft – and given 24 penalty points. In the fourth race, however, they came back keenly to take second place, showing that they were still in the hunt for the gold medal, passionately and determinedly. Leaving aside the blunder of the false start in the third race, they performed excellently in the other races, finishing first in the opening race, third in the second race, and runners-up in the fourth.

The third race was won by the New Zealanders (Hesson-Dickson), and the fourth by the crew from the Argentine (Sesto-Reinoso). In the 470 Men’s, victory in the third race went to Australia’s Wilmot-Page, with the Greek champions and world No.1 pair Andreas Kosmatopoulos and Kostas Trigonis finishing sixteenth. In the fourth race, it was Spain (Martinez-Wood) which came first, with Andreas Kosmatopoulos and Kostas Trigonis finishing fifteenth. After the races, however, objections were lodged, and as a result, the Portuguese and Spanish craft, placed ninth and tenth respectively in the third race, were disqualified, so that Kosmatopoulos-Trigonis are now lying fourteenth and are 14th (of 15) in the overall placement, with 61 points.

	Name	Country	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Points
1	Molund-Andersson	Sweden	4	7	3	10	24
2	Kliger-Gal	Israel	8	3	4	16	31
3	Rogers-Glanfield	Great Britain	7	12	6	6	31
4	Zellmer-Krabbe	Germany	10	6	13	8	37
5	Zandona-Trani	Italy	20	2	2	17	41
6	Martinez-Wood	Spain	3	21	19	1	44
7	Marinho-Nunes	Portugal	1	4	31	11	47
8	Braslavets-Matvienko	Ukraine	13	23	7	4	47

In the 49ers, the tricks of the wind allowed only one of the scheduled three races. The winners in the fourth and only race of the day were the Australians Nicholson-Boyd, followed by Brotherton-Asquith of Great Britain and the Brazilians Fonseca-Duarte. The Greek craft crewed by Thanasis Pahoumas and Vasilis Portosalte finished in sixth place and is now 15th in the overall rankings, with 55 penalty points.

Overall placings after four races:

	Name	Country	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Points
1	Sibelo P.-Sibelo G.	Italy	2	6	6	4	18
2	Brotherton-Asquith	Great Britain	10	2	7	2	21
3	Wadlow-Spaulding	USA	6	3	3	12	24
4	Nicholson-Boyd	Australia	3	4	18	1	26
5	Fonseca-Duarte	Brazil	9	19	2	3	33
6	Baur-Groy	Germany	5	13	4	11	33
7	Luka-Leonchuk	Ukraine	11	8	5	13	37
8	Sundby-Bovim	Norway	7	7	1	23	38

In the Star, the two races took place normally. The Brazilians Grael-Ferreira took first place in the third race, while the USA crew breasted the tape first in the fourth. The Greek craft, crewed by Leonidas Pelekanakis and Giorgos Kontogouris, was sixteenth in the third race but third in the fourth race, the best Greek result so far in the four races sailed. Thus, the Greek sailors are 11th in the overall placement, with 43 points.

Overall placings after four races:

	Name	Country	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Points
1	Bromby-White	Bermuda	6	1	3	4	14
2	Pickel-Kolb	Germany	2	9	4	5	20
3	Kats-Martens	Netherlands	4	6	2	9	21
4	Grael-Ferreira	Brazil	12	2	1	7	22
5	Cayard-Trinter	USA	10	3	10	1	24
6	Marazzi-de Maria	Switzerland	7	13	5	2	27
7	Percy-Mitchell	Great Britain	1	4	17	6	28
8	Rohart-Rampeau	France	3	10	15	8	36

The brightest star in the Finn class was that of the British gold medallist and Sailor of the Year in 2002, Ben Ainslie. By coming first in both the third and the fourth races, he is in the first place. The Greek champion Emilios Papathanasiou did not have a good third race, finishing 24th, but in the next race he came on strong and was runner-up. But yesterday’s disqualification and today’s low placing in the third race have set him back a long way and he is now fourteenth in the overall placement, with 52 penalty points.

Overall placings after four races:

	Name	Country	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Points
1	Ainslie	GB	2	6	1	1	10
2	Godefroid	Belgium	11	7	2	3	23
3	Kuret	Croatia	5	5	7	9	26
4	Signorini	Brazil	9	11	4	4	28
5	Vincec	Slovenia	8	8	8	6	30
6	Adakan	Turkey	4	1	17	12	34
7	Trujillo	Spain	6	2	19	7	34
8	Florent	France	3	8	18	5	34

In the Yngling, the third race – the opening one of the day – was won by the USA craft (Swett-Touchette-Purdy), with Ukraine the runner-up (Taran-Matevusheva-Kalinina) and the German girls Wagner-Hoell-Lochbrunner in third place. The Greek crew of Katerina Giakoumidou, Eleni Dimitrakopoulou and Eftychia Mantzaraki came eighth. In the fourth race, the Netherlands (Thies-Bes-de Jong) were the winners, with New Zealand (Thorpe-Vinsen-Lambert) second and the British crew (Robertson-Ayton-Webb) third. The Greek team was placed twelfth in this fourth race.

Overall placings after four races:

	Name	Country	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Points
1	Taran-Matevusheva-Kalinina	Ukraine	1	2	6	5	14
2	Swett-Touchette-Purdy	USA	3	1	2	10	16
3	Wagner-Hoell-Lochbrunner	Germany	6	6	1	6	19
4	Thies-Bes-de Jong	Netherlands	4	8	8	1	21
5	Robertson-Ayton-Webb	Great Britain	10	4	9	3	26
6	Jensen-Jespersen-Kiel	Denmark	9	5	7	7	28
7	Paula Lewin - Petta Lewin-Cooper	Bermuda	5	10	10	4	29
8	Giakoumidou-Dimitrakopoulou-Mantzaraki	Greece	7	7	5	12	31

the Europe, Laser, Mistral and Tornado classes today was a rest day. Tomorrow, starting at 13.00, there will be racing in the Europe, Laser, Mistral, Tornado, and Star classes, with the sailors in the 470, Finn, and Yngling classes taking the day off. The 49er class would normally have had no races yesterday, but after today’s postponement of two of the three races the technical committee decided that there will be a race tomorrow on Track B, starting at 15.00.

Flash quotes

Susanne Ward, (Denmark), 470 Women’s, 1st overall

The race: “The race was very difficult. The wind was changing direction, even if it was less strong than yesterday, which is why we were so slow. We’re very happy with our performance”.
The competition with the Greek crew: “Difficult competition”.
The next race: “I’m hoping the winds will change, but unfortunately that’s beyond our control!”

Emilia Tsoulfa (Greece), 470 Women’s, 2nd overall

The racing conditions: “The racing went well. We had two races, each of sixty-five minutes, plenty of time for each race”.

The weather conditions: “Today the wind was less strong. The wind was a northerly, continuously changing direction and intensity”.

Their performance: “In our first race we had a false start, because we hadn’t calculated the start point properly. The second race was satisfactory, and we sailed as though it was our first race”.

Hopes for the next race: “Things will be a bit more difficult because of today’s disqualification, but we’ll try and sail with less stress in the next race”.

Gary Boyd, Christopher Nicholson, (Áustralia), 49er, winner of the fourth race

The race: “The race was difficult. The wind changed direction. We’re very happy with our performance”.
The competition: “The competition was stiff. The athletes are great – the best in the world”.
The next races: “We hope the wind will be more of a help to us and I hope we will go on to win”.

Martin Anderson (Sweden), 470 Men’s, 1st overall

The race: “A difficult race, the wind was changing direction”.
Their performance: “Very happy with it. We sailed four races and there were a lot of changes”.
The organisation: “Very very good, everything’s excellent. The weather is superb”.
The next races: “I’ve no idea what’ll happen, because of the wind”.

Petronella de Jong (Netherlands), Yngling, winner of the fourth race

The race: “We had a very good start, we were first right from the beginning and we never lost the lead at any point in the race. Even though New Zealand was on our heels right to the last moment, we finished first. It was a quite exciting race, but fairly tough because of the wind. I hope there will be a northerly wind for the next few days”.

Source: OLYMPIC NEWS SERVICE