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Five New Zealand crews will contest the medal races on the final day of racing at the French Olympic Week regatta in Hyeres tonight (NZ time), with two windfoilers in with a chance of finishing on the podium.
Veerle ten Have qualified for the women's iQFoil in fifth and Josh Armit in eighth but the windfoilers run a different format to most other Olympic classes with all 10 qualifiers in with a chance of claiming a medal.
Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson go into the Nacra 17 medal race in fourth but too far behind the top three to have any chance of finishing on the podium, while Alex Maloney and Olivia Hobbs are seventh in the 49erFX and George Gautrey eighth in the ILCA 7 (Laser).
There will be plenty of interest in the performances of ten Have and Armit, who have both impressed in the early stages of their international windfoiling careers.
Ten Have had a difficult time on the final day of qualifying, crashing with another competitor while leading her first race, and then sailing the second race not realising she had a damaged mast. She received redress for the incident in the first race but lost some performance from the damaged mast in the second.
"Today was a bit of a rough one for me," she said. "I was leading going around the final mark before the final reach and the girl behind didn't see that I had slowed down and she came crashing straight in from behind. She clipped my sail and we both fell in and everyone passed us.
"I'm keen to get into the action tomorrow. I definitely feel more equipped now I have had the experience [of racing in the medal race format] so know what to expect. I guess I'm more eager as well to get up there. I definitely have that fire of wanting to get up in there."
It will be an entirely new experience for Armit, who continued his progress up the overall standings to qualify for the medal races on the back of a third and seventh in his two races today.
The top qualifer moves straight through to the final and next two qualifiers into the semifinals while the remaining seven sailors compete in a one-off race to find the last two semifinalists.
"It's going to be my first time in a medal race so it's pretty pleasing to tick that box," said Armit, who only started windfoiling two years ago. "It was cool to put together some more good races today because I am learning so much every day.
"I'm still getting my head around the format but know I need to do the best I can in each race. I'll just need to attack it and be really aggressive because everything is on the line. It's intense racing."
Wilkinson and Dawson will go into their Nacra 17 medal race with eyes only for their Australian rivals. The pair can't climb any higher than fourth but, equally, can't drop any further than fifth, so will treat it like a match race against Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin.
"It's who beats who in the medal race tomorrow so it's going to be a good battle with the Aussies," Wilkinson said. "We're really looking forward to it. It's the first chance we've had to have a crack at a match race in a medal race."
It will also be Maloney and Hobbs' first medal race as a combination, although Maloney has plenty of experience, and they'll look to sail their own race with most above them needing to keep an eye on their rivals as they decide the medals.
Gautrey dropped four places in the standings on the ILCA 7 course today as he got caught up in traffic but has the chance to recover most of that tonight with the points so tight.
"This will be only my second medal race, which is a bit of a product of Covid and not having done a lot of World Cups, so I will go in a little fresh and hoping to learn something," he said. "I'll probably be aggressive. The points are tight and I can get up to fifth, so I'll go for it."
Logan Dunning Beck and Oscar Gunn narrowly missed out on qualifying for the 49er medal race, missing out on countback, and Jo Aleh and Molly Meech showed encouraging signs to finish 12th in the 49erFX in their first international event together.
Results and standings after day 5 of the French Olympic Week regatta in Hyeres:
49er (61 boats)
1st: Dominik Buksak / Szymon Wierzbicki (POL) 3 1 1 3 4 1 1 4 2 8 2 10 9 (23) 9 - 58 points
2nd: Nevin Snow / Max Agnese (USA) 1 4 3 1 2 3 3 11 5 4 (18) 17 3 4 - 58 pts
3rd: Erwin Fischer / Clement Pequin (FRA) 1 1 14 4 (19) 1 1 16 9 2 5 1 6 15 2 - 78 pts
12th: Logan Dunning Beck / Oscar Gunn (NZL) 12 6 7 8 1 13 11 5 14 17 (21) 4 8 8 19 - 133 pts
13th: Isaac McHardie / William McKenzie (NZL) 2 11 4 8 11 3 2 20 15 (27) 26 23 1 3 15 - 143 pts
32nd: Sam Bacon / Henry Gautrey (NZL) 14 15 12 29 23 22 20 (32 BFD) 5 10 1 1 - 152 pts
49erFX (38 boats)
1st: Martine Grael / Kahena Kunze (BRA) 8 (13) 4 5 8 5 1 3 1 11 2 3 2 1 2 - 56 pts
2nd: Vilma Bobeck / Rebecca Netzlar (SWE) 1 1 14 (20 DSQ) 2 9 3 2 1 1 1 9 8 5 8 - 65 pts
3rd: Stephanie Roble / Margaret Shea (USA) 2 1 6 9 (12) 1 9 1 6 4 4 2 6 9 7 - 67 pts
7th: Alex Maloney / Olivia Hobbs (NZL) 3 10 5 11 10 1 1 4 3 10 9 11 3 10 (17) - 90 pts
12th: Jo Aleh / Molly Meech (NZL) 6 12 16 4 15 2 9 8 6 3 8 (19) 15 15 5 - 123 pts
Nacra 17 (32 boats)
1st: Ruggero Tita / Caterina Banti (ITA) 1 5 4 4 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 (6) 4 - 28 pts
2nd: John Gimson / Anna Burnet (GBR) 3 (16) 3 1 5 4 5 2 1 3 3 3 3 5 1 - 42 pts
3rd: Sinem Kurtbay / Akseli Keskinen (FIN) (14) 1 3 2 2 2 3 6 2 4 2 9 1 10 - 58 pts
4th: Micah Wilkinson / Erica Dawson (NZL) 7 1 12 (16) 6 3 3 10 4 4 14 6 4 9 2 - 85 pts
Women's iQFoil (32 boards)
1st: Hélène Noesmoen (FRA) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (2) (6) 1 21 1 (8) 1 1 - 12 pts
2nd: Maja Dziarnowska (POL) (6) (6) 5 2 3 2 2 3 4 2 5 (9) 5 1 1 - 36 pts
3rd: Delphine Cousin (FRA) 2 3 7 6 2 4 3 4 2 6 11 3 (13) (15) (15) - 53 pts
5th Veerle ten Have (NZL) (9) 4 2 5 7 3 4 5 8 4 (17) 5 3 (9 RDG) 5 - 55 pts
27th: Brianna Orams (NZL) 27 28 26 28 (30) (30) 29 25 25 25 25 17 20 17 (33 DNF) - 293 pts
Men's iQFoil (57 boards)
1st: Nicolas Goyard (FRA) (10) (2) 2 (6) 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 - 15 pts
2nd: Clément Bourgeois (FRA) 2 3 3 1 6 (57 DNF) 8 2 (13) (11) 1 3 6 5 1 - 44 pts
3rd: Sebastian Koerdel (GER) (11) 1 6 4 3 2 4 3 (18) 2 (11) 3 1 5 1 11 - 46 pts
8th: Josh Armit (NZL) (15) 13 13 (28) 7 10 (17) 9 11 5 5 9 9 7 3 7 - 108 pts
27th Eli Liefting (NZL) 27 (36) (47) 20 20 31 24 32 31 (40) 13 5 13 36 27 21 - 300 pts
56th: Thomas Crook (NZL) (DNC 58) (DNC 58) DNC 58 DNC 58 DNC 58 DNC 58 DNC 58 DNC 58 DNC 58 DNC 58 39 DNC 39 DNC 39 DNC 57 DNC 39 DNC 39 DNC - 651 pts
ILCA 7 (129 boats)
1st: Philipp Buhl (GER) 1 3 1 1 2 1 1 9 (29) 19 - 38 pts
2nd: Pavlos Kontides (CYP) 3 1 2 2 1 10 7 5 7 (17) - 38 pts
3rd: Michael Beckett (GBR) 6 4 3 6 4 1 (26) 14 1 1 - 40 pts
8th: George Gautrey (NZL) 9 2 2 2 5 16 5 8 (23) 18 - 67 pts
24th: Tom Saunders (NZL) 2 3 1 4 (44 UFD) 44 UFD 44 DSQ 2 18 12 - 130 pts
91st: Luke Deegan (NZL) (35) 17 31 25 33 21 4 21 10 11 - 173 pts
104th: Luke Cashmore (NZL) 35 26 28 41 9 29 2 18 (44 BFD) 44 BFD - 232 pts
ILCA 6 (65 boats)
1st: Agata Barwinska (POL) 8 2 1 17 4 (19) 7 2 19 14 - 74 pts
2nd: Marie Barrue (FRA) 16 12 6 16 28 1 12 18 4 10 - 95 pts
3rd: Emma Plasschaert (BEL) 6 7 10 8 6 37 (66 BFD) 5 20 2 - 101 pts
45th: Olivia Christie (NZL) 32 33 40 39 36 44 38 26 44 (66 DNF) - 331 pts
