Issue date
Sailors focus and fitness were tested on the fourth day of racing at ISAF Sailing World Cup Qingdao as a teasing light southerly breeze played its way across the race tracks.
Qingdao has showcased a whole host of conditions taking the 131 sailors from 24 nations from extreme big breeze to patient light wind tests.
Coming in at 5 knots the southerly breeze at an average current of 1.5 knots made Thursday 17 October a testing race day.
Men's 470
Lucas Calabrese and Juan de la Fuente (ARG) took the lead off of Croatia's Sime Fantela and Igor Marenic with a strong double bullet day mixed in with a last race fourth. The Argentineans lead only stands at a solitary point making for a tantalising finale in Qingdao.
Paul Snow Hansen and Dan Wilcox (NZL) lost out on a point to China's Hao Lan and Chao Wang in the pursuit for third but a second place in the final race of the day brought a couple of Kiwi smiles ashore, "The breeze was pretty tricky today, we had a lot of tide,” said Snow Hansen. "Just to get through the start line was a challenge. We sailed quite well. We've got the potential to do well and we had a good last race but feel like we could do better.
"The balance of a pretty tricky breeze and a lot of tide made the decisions a lot more complicated than usual. Fun though and it's cool to have another element.”
Lan and Wang are third on 23 points with the Kiwis three behind on 26 points.
Women's 470
Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie (NZL) made it six race wins in a row and lead Hui Feng and Lizhu Huang by eight points.
Whilst the Kiwis are the runaway leaders a fight for the final podium spots looks on with just three points separating Feng and Huang in second, Qian Fu and Liyun Liu (CHN) in third and Nan Shanghai and Xue Li (CHN) in fourth.
Laser Radial
China's Dong Zheng had a perfect day taking three race wins in the Laser Radial. The Chinese sailor was near faultless racing in her favourite conditions to take her race win tally up to five from eight races.
Although she holds five race wins the Chinese sailor hasn't run away with proceedings and is only seven points ahead of World #1 Tatiana Drozdovskaya (BLR) who struggled in the lighter breeze taking a 5-8-8 scoreline into the penultimate day.
Ashley Stoddart (AUS) is third followed by Mathilde de Kerangat (FRA).
Laser
Reading the situation well once again was Croatia's Tonci Stipanovic. Whilst he was unable to match Radial sailor Zheng's perfection, he came pretty close taking a third and two bullets in the light breeze.
Stipanovic discards an OCS but has a healthy 16 point advantage over Pavlos Kontides (CYP) who had an up and down day with a discarded 11th, a second and third.
Dropping out of the last podium spot was New Zealand's Thomas Saunders as Kacper Zieminski (POL) sneaked through. The race for third has been a roller coaster ride with daily shuffling of places and just three points separates third to sixth.
Saunders has been making the most of the week, taking in the range of breeze Qingdao has offered, "A good start is pretty key and then it's more about positioning on the race course. I got that right and wrong today, it's pretty hard to get it right all the time but that's sailing.
"There's a lot of planning ahead, that was pretty important today. It's been really good racing and awesome to race some of the World #10 ahead of the Worlds.”
Racing resumes at 12:00 local time on Friday 18 October with three races scheduled in the Men's and Women's 470 fleets.
The Laser, Laser Radial and RS:X fleets get going at 13:00 local time. The Lasers will race two whilst the RS:X will sail three.
Results
Full results from ISAF Sailing World Cup Qingdao are available here.
Tracking
Both 2D and 3D tracking is available on Alpha course on a daily basis.
Click here to view the tracking.
Video
News feeds containing interviews and b-roll of sailing action will be available from Thursday 17 October through to Saturday 19 October on the ISAF FTP. A log Sheet will be attached.
In addition, fully-produced highlight packages will be available from 17-19 October. These will contain interviews, action and results, including event graphics.
For FTP login details, specific requests and native language interviews please contact the ISAF Communications Department below.
Photography
High resolution, editorial rights free images is available to download via ISAF's Flickr here http://www.flickr.com/isafmedialibrary.
For specific requests please contact the ISAF Communications department below.
Follow
For all results and information visit the ISAF Sailing World Cup website here http://www.sailing.org/worldcup/home.php
ISAF Sailing World Cup Facebook http://www.facebook.com/ISAFWorldSailing
The @ISAFupdates Twitter account will be following the action throughout the week, following the account here www.twitter.com/ISAFupdates.
