China’s Zhen Zhicong sailed away with 2 “guns” (race wins) in races 3 and 5. He further consolidated his place at the top of the leader board, displacing Defending Champion Malaysia’s Alvin Yeow in the process, by finishing a solid 3rd in race 4 which was duly won by his team-mate Xiaowei Ji, making it a clean sweep for China on Day 2 of the Individual Championship.

Race 3 began in light wind conditions accompanied by a steadily building flood tide. By the end of the first beat the fleet was fairly spread out due to the light conditions. Zhen was pushed throughout the race by Alvin Yeow with the lead changing hands from time to time but Zhen hung in there and pipped Alvin at the most important point, the finish line to take race 3 honours.

Singapore’s Griselda Khng moved into contention in race 4 taking an early lead and fighting for it all the way with China’s Xiaowei Ji. Griselda became in the process the first girl sailor to lead the 58 boat fleet but could not hold on as Xiao took over the lead on the second beat to windward and pretty much held on to it till the end of the race. Zhen was content to play a waiting game in this race, finishing in a solid third place and thereby doing his Title chances no harm at all.

The wind that had threatened to build by the end of race 4 weakened again through race 5 which turned out to be a straight contest between sail numbers CHN 112 and CHN 1, Zhen and Xiao, with proceedings ending in Zhen’s favour.

Zhen’s race results so far have been 4th, 6th, 1st, 3rd and 1st leaving the rest of the fleet with all the running to do when the Individual Event resumes in the New Year!

Tomorrow, December 31st the last day of 2003 will be the first day of the Team Championship which will conclude on January 1st 2004. The Individual Championship will resume from January 2nd and run till the end of the event on the evening of January 3rd, 2004.

Source: Event Media