Another bullet for Ainslie

As racing once again canned for most classes thanks to the lack of wind

For sailors competing in the Olympic test event off Qingdao, today proved another one of frustration. In the morning a front passed through bring rain and promising winds in the 15-20 knot range, with a forecast that had the race organisers considering a ponstponement of the starts. But as the front departed so for the most part did the wind by the time of the start of the first races at 1300 local time.

"The Chinese local forecast for today was 10-16 knots throughout the day with a peak at 3pm, but after the rain came through it killed all the rain and it just never got going again," recounted RYA Olympic Manager Stephen Park.

In the light 1-4 knot conditions left the postponement flag flying across the race courses. After about two hours and with no sign of breeze, racing was abandoned on courses A (Laser Radials and 49ers) and B (RSXs) but as the committee boats on Courses C and D were preparing to abandon racing, so the offshore breeze picked up to around six knots and the Race Committee swiftly had windward-leeward and trapezoid courses set up.

Only the Finns and 470 men were able to get a race in. The RSXs went out but came straight back in again. The Ynglings did get away but the race was abandoned when the breeze ran out. The Tornados managed to finish a race, but the first finisher was six minutes outside of the maximum time allowance so this race has been canned. This was fortunate for the Austrian overall leaders Roman Hagara and Hans Peter Steinaucher , who had only managed a mid-fleet finish, while their nearest rivals French duo Xavier Revil and Christophe Espangon had finished first.

Sailors in the fleets which did race on courses C and D found themselves stuggling with the tide.

The Men’s 470 fleet were the first to get away, with the pin end favoured. The wind dropped off through the race, leaving a small leading pack ahead of the main fleet. Asian Sailing Champions and three-time Olympians Daeyoung Kim and Sungahn Jung from Korea used their experience to navigate their way up to second place overall. Overall leaders going into the race Americans Stuart McNay and Graham Biehl got caught up in a pile up at the downwind gate, as the weak breeze and strong current combined to compress the fleet into one mass at the starboard buoy. Already behind the leaders, McNay and Biehl emerged well down the fleet, and although their ultimate 17th finish instantly became their discard, they still lose their top spot on the leaderboard and fall to fourth overall.

Taking over at the top of the 470 Men's leaderboard are Skandia Team GBR's Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield, helped by their fourth place but also by being able to discard their black flag result from race three. They now lead by 15 points. The fight for second is close with French duo Nicolas Charbonnier and Olivier Bausset just one point behind the Koreans and one ahead of the Americans.

In the Finn class, Ben Ainslie has scored his fourth bullet out of five races and now the discard have kicked in he discards a second! As ever Ainslie is dominating the class leading on four points to second placed Greek Emilios Papathanasiou's and Jonas Hogh-Christensen's 15.

Right from the gun Ainslie was off and ahead down the middle of the course and he rounded the top mark with a 20 second lead over the Danish World Champion Hoegh-Christensen.

So why is Ainslie doing so well here? "I don't know," says the Athens Gold medallist. "I would like to say it's practice and preparation, but it's not really in this case. I think it's experience in racing. But the conditions so far are being good to me.'"

Wind prospects are not looking a whole lot better for the rest of the regatta. According to Skandia Team GBR meteorologist Fiona Campbell conditions over the next three days will be for light winds or no wind and this will certainly meaning racing all the way up to and including reserve day on 29 August.

Today the organised announced that on the final day there will be two medal race courses rather than just one. In addition to this they are doubling up some classes by sailing trapezoids. "That is a big change on the basis that all of the medal races sailed to date have all been using windward-leewards," says Stephen Park. "It's is because they don’t think they’ll get the races in otherwise. If they sail trapezoids they can sail men and women 470s and men and women Lasers at the same time on two courses, one on the outer loop, one on the inner loop. The problem is that if they don't do that they just won’t have a likely wind window that will last long enough to get that all in, certainly not on one course."

Alpha course one of the medal courses will be located so that it is just off the breakwater allowing spectators a bird's eye of what is going on.

As it is it looks like it will be a struggle to get all the racing in. While little wind is being forecast this doesn't mean it won't materialise. "It is a very difficult venue to forecast," admits Park. "The locals have got quite advanced weather models and plenty of information and they are struggling. And from the information we have got from the meteorologists from other countries - everyone seems to be finding it quite difficult."

Results:

470 men

Pos	Skipper	Crew	Sail no	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	Tot	Net
1	Nick ROGERS	Joe GLANFIELD	GBR 817	4	1	(BFD)	3	4	55	12
2	Daeyoung KIM	Sungahn JUNG	KOR 81	-28	4	5	17	1	55	27
3	Nicolas CHARBONNIER	Olivier BAUSSET	FRA 7	8	11	2	-14	7	42	28
4	Stuart MCNAY	Graham BIEHL	USA 1713	2	9	13	5	-17	46	29
5	Pavle KOSTOV	Petar CUPAC	CRO 111	11	-26	7	11	2	57	31
6	Francisco SANCHEZ	Alejandro RAMOS	ESP 1	9	2	12	13	-25	61	36
7	Nic ASHER	Elliot WILLIS	GBR 828	-16	5	15	16	6	58	42
8	Gideon KLIGER	Ehud (UDI) GAL	ISR 7	1	6	14	(BFD)	22	86	43
9	Enrico FONDA	Marco GUERRA	ITA 7	19	19	6	4	-37	85	48
10	Geoffrey WOOLLEY	Mark OVERINGTON	NZL 198	14	10	-31	18	9	82	51
11	Kazuto SEKI	Shoichi YANAGAWA	JPN 4181	21	15	3	(BFD)	15	97	54
12	Ante CESIC	Ante KUJUNDZIC	CRO 69	15	24	8	(BFD)	8	98	55
13	Yuan Zhen XU	Terence KOH	SIN 7	17	14	23	(BFD)	3	100	57
14	Matthias SCHMID	Florian REICHSTADTER	AUT 3	22	20	4	12	-39	97	58
15	Benjamin BONNAUD	Romain BONNAUD	FRA 11	-35	23	1	2	33	94	59
16	Tetsuya MATSUNAGA	Taro UENO	JPN 4207	24	7	9	20	-34	94	60
17	Tomaz COPI	Aljaz JADEK	SLO 141	5	31	17	8	-32	93	61
18	Mathew BELCHER	Nick BEHRENS	AUS 361	7	16	22	(BFD)	20	108	65
19	Michael ANDERSON-MITTERLING	David HUGHES	USA 1734	12	8	(BFD)	10	36	109	66
20	Tobias ETTER	Felix STEIGER	SUI 51	23	12	21	(BFD)	10	109	66
21	Andreas KOSMATOPOULOS	Andreas PAPADOPOULOS	GRE 131	20	18	18	(BFD)	13	112	69
22	Gerald OWENS	Hunt SAM	IRL 77	-32	27	10	21	12	102	70
23	Javier CONTE	Juan DE LA FUENTE	ARG 70	3	35	(BFD)	19	14	114	71
24	Stephane LOCAS	Oliver BONE	CAN 606	-25	21	16	15	21	98	73
25	Karlo HMELJAK	Luka VERZEL	SLO 16	-39	32	20	6	16	113	74
26	Roy Junhao TAY	Pei Ming CHUNG	SIN 6	31	-40	27	1	19	118	78
27	Feng ZHEN	Zhiqiang FU	CHN 428	13	17	-35	22	29	116	81
28	Ronan DREANO	Ronan FLOCH	FRA 24	18	34	(BFD)	7	24	126	83
29	Farokh TARAPORE	Vikas KAPILA	IND 17	(OCS)	3	28	27	26	127	84
30	Stephen KEEN	Philip KEEN	NZL 201	26	13	36	9	(OCS)	127	84
31	Hechi CHEN	Yongdong ZHANG	CHN 543	6	29	32	(BFD)	23	133	90
32	Nathan WILMOT	Malcolm PAGE	AUS 311	10	22	(BFD)	BFD	18	136	93
33	Weidong WANG	Daokun DENG	CHN 60	33	25	25	(BFD)	11	137	94
34	Panagiotis KAMBOURIDIS	Gerasimos OROLOGAS	GRE 165	36	30	11	(BFD)	28	148	105
35	Cheul YOON	Hyeongtae KIM	KOR 83	30	-36	24	28	27	145	109
36	Dmitriy BEREZKIN	Alexandr ZYBIN	RUS 4	29	33	26	24	-35	147	112
37	Vitaliy MOSHKOVSKYY	Yaroslav TALABUYEV	UKR 71	27	38	19	(BFD)	31	158	115
38	Gabrio ZANDONA'	Andrea TRANI	ITA 2	(DSQ)	39	29	BFD	5	159	116
39	Dylan CLARKE	Ayden MENZIES	AUS 359	34	28	(BFD)	25	30	160	117
40	Aung Myin THU	Sai Pyae Song HEIN	MYA 1	38	37	33	23	(DNF)	174	131
41	Pushparajan MUTTU	Nijeesh BHASKARAN	IND 18	37	42	34	26	(DNF)	182	139
42	Alberto GONZALEZ	Diego GONZALEZ	CHI 1101	40	41	30	(BFD)	38

Finn

Pos	Skipper	Sail no	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	Tot	Net
1	Ben AINSLIE	GBR 3	1	-2	1	1	1	6	4
2	Emilios PAPATHANASIOU	GRE 7	2	1	(DNF)	9	3	34	15
3	Jonas HOGH-CHRISTENSEN	DEN 2	-16	3	6	4	2	31	15
4	Johan TILLANDER	SWE 736	7	4	-10	3	4	28	18
5	Dan SLATER	NZL 1	6	8	(OCS)	2	6	41	22
6	Zachary RAILEY	USA 4	-14	5	4	6	9	38	24
7	Gasper VINCEC	SLO 5	4	7	5	10	-16	42	26
8	Giorgio POGGI	ITA 117	9	6	8	-14	5	42	28
9	Thomas LAURSEN	DEN 7	5	10	9	5	-15	44	29
10	Ed WRIGHT	GBR 111	12	9	2	(OCS)	8	50	31
11	Rafael TRUJILLO	ESP 100	-15	12	3	8	12	50	35
12	Hongquan LI	CHN 43	3	11	15	7	-18	54	36
13	Brendan CASEY	AUS 188	10	-14	7	12	10	53	39
14	Darrell PECK	USA 81	-17	15	14	11	7	64	47
15	Waclaw SZUKIEL	POL 12	11	-16	12	16	11	66	50
16	Peng ZHANG	CHN 188	8	-17	11	17	17	70	53
17	Lei GONG	CHN 319	13	(DNF)	13	13	14	72	53
18	Tapio NIRKKO	FIN 216	18	13	(OCS)	15	13	78	59