| HYÈRES, FRANCE-(27-4-2004) Blue sky, sunshine and good wind started the 3rd day of racing in Hyères. Starting at 8 knots the South Easterly breeze increased to 14 knots providing perfect sailing conditions for all classes, finally able to catch up with the programme and race the last qualifications in the Lasers, 470 and Europe classes.
Sarah Macky has excelled today by winning the 3 races programmed for the Europes. These outstanding results propelled the New Zealander to the second place of the rankings. She is now only 3 points behind Siren Sundby who won 2 races after scoring a 21st. Huanqui Shen from China is placed third, in front of Sari Multala.
In the Tornado class, Mitch Booth and Herbert Dercksen (NED) claimed back their top position after sailing consistently to a 3rd and 2nd place. Race winners are the American Lovell/Ogletree and the French Backes/Voiron, placed in 2nd and 3rd position overall.
Up and down results for the Sibello brothers in the 49er. The Italians have been alternating outstanding results in the top 3 with mid fleet placings. They won 2 races today and placed 13th in the third to grab the 2nd position in the overall results. The Portuguese Lima/Andrade are placed third after winning a race. New regatta leaders are the Spanish crew of Padron/de la Plaza. Iker Martinez and Xavier Fernandez haven’t race since yesterday as the skipper had to go back to Spain to have his injured knee checked. They might resume racing in the next days.
Two races were sailed in the 470 fleets. In the women division, early leaders, Hesson/Dickson fell to 8th position after a bad day (22; 25). Slovenian Dekleva/Maucec are now in the lead with a 3 points margin over French crew of Petitjean/Douroux. Mixed results for Greek champions, Bekatorou/Tsoulfa who won their first race of the championship before placing 22nd. They are now down in 15th place. The Ward sisters won the last race to climb from 12th to 5th overall.
The Bonnaud brothers are increasing their lead to 15 points after winning a 3rd race and scoring a 5th. Only 7 points are separating the next 8 teams from the leaders. Today race winners include Cooke/Gair (NZL), Seki/Todoroki (JAP) and Fonda/Zuccheti from Italy.
Class favorites are claiming back the top of the rankings in the Finn after 3 races sailed today on Alpha (in front of the YC). Emilios Papathanasiou (GRE) seems to have adjusted his downwind technique to take control of the regatta with a solid 15 points lead over multi-World Champion and 1996 Gold Medallist, Mateusz Kusznierewicz winner of today’s last race. Young Croatian Marin Misura is placed in third position.
In the 2.4, Thierry Schmitter can finally discard his “ocs” to take the lead. He continued on his good form to win a race and place 4th in the second. French Damien Seguin is in second position only 1 point behind his Dutch rival. Allan Smith is now leading the British selection 3 points ahead of Helena Lucas.
Shirley Robertson, Sarah Ayton and Sarah Webb are comforting their lead in the Yngling class with two bullets on the 3 races sailed today. The American team helmed by Sally Barlow scored some of their best results with a 1st, 2nd and 6th place to take the second place on the scoreboard. They are just one point ahead of Wagner/Hoell/Lochbrunner from Germany.
With the 4th race cancelled in the Mistral women, the only race sailed today was won by Amelie Lux from Germany who takes tonight the head of the classifications. Olga Maslivets (UKR) and Charline Picon (FRA) are on equal points in second and third place.
The Men are back on schedule after 3 races completed and won by the leaders, Tom Ashlet (NZL), Fabrice Hassen (FRA) and Joao Rodrigues (POR).
No results are available yet from the Lasers who started sailing their 3 races in mid-afternoon.
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