London 2012 day seven: Laser and Radial medal prospects firm up

Slingsby and Kontides to battle it out for Laser gold and silver as one points separates the top four Radials

470 Men

In the 470 Men there was a general recall before today's first race but once underway it was Israel's Gideon Kliger and Eran Sela who led around the top mark ahead of Japan's Ryunosuke Harada and Yuugo Yoshida with the Aussie favourites Mat Belcher and Malcolm Page third with Brits Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell in ninth.

After a reaching leg, early on in the run the Aussies powered into first place with the Brits pulling up to seventh. As the multiple World Champions performed a horizon job on the fleet, so on the second beat the Japanese and Israelis jockeyed for second, with Harada and Yoshida rounding the top mark ahead. By this time the Brits were up to fifth. On the final run Patience and Bithells put pedal to the metal and moved into third where they remained to the finish.

In the second race the Aussie once again had the legs, nosing ahead in the latter half of the first beat but we edged out at the top mark by France's Pierre Leboucher and Vincent Garos with the talented young Kiwis Paul Snow-Hansen and Jason Saunders third and the Brits fifth. The Aussies powered past the France early in the first run with Patience and Bithell pulling up to fourth then into third just at the leeward gate. They remained close to the Kiwis up the next beat but the Kiwis rounded just ahead of them and the Brits were unable to recover third by the finish.

So two bullets two for the Aussies. “You can’t ask for anything more than two firsts,” said Malcolm Page. “We’ve certainly had our mojo back over the last two days.”

“It’s a great position to be in,” added Belcher. “Mal and I are experienced, we haven’t lost an event all year and that gives us great confidence. We feel very comfortable in the yellow jersey. It’s not going to stop us sleeping at night but we’re also experienced enough to know that there are still four races to go before the medal race.”

With a layday tomorrow, the two will be celebrating their coach's Victor Kovalenko's birthday.

Luke Patience and Stu Bithell came ashore pleased: "We are happy today. We have come off with another great solid day and we are just in a great place right now and really happy to be where we’re at. If we can carry on doing what we are doing for the next four fleet races, that puts us into a fantastic position and I don’t think we could have asked for much more at this stage of the game, first Olympics – it’s exciting!"

Of today's races Bithell admitted: "Not the greatest of starts. The tide was pushing us over the start line and we were just holding back there – we don’t want any black flags on our score sheet - but we were just consistently top 10 around the windward mark and picking a few up from there. So we are sailing well in that respect but obviously one team did it better than us today so fair play to them."

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