Thompson ready for final medal showdown in Laser class
Written by RYA | 17 September 2014
Thompson expecting tough battle for gold in Thursday's Laser final
Nick Thompson will head into tomorrow’s double points Laser medal race effectively tied with the series leader Australian Tom Burton as the fight for the World Championship podium reaches its climax in Santander.
Thursday (18 September) sees the final 10-boat medal races for both the Laser and the Laser Radial events, with Thompson aiming for a golden finish to his campaign after two Worlds silvers and a bronze already to his name.
Santander saw a marked change of conditions on Wednesday, with light winds making way for heavy weather delays on this sixth day of competition.
The Laser fleet managed just one of their scheduled three races on their penultimate race day as officials struggled to maintain the position of the starting boat in the strong winds.
But the Lymington sailor made the most of his one race to narrow the gap on the series leader Tom Burton of Australia heading into Thursday’s finale.
“I managed to get a third, so that was pretty pleasing but it was a bit of a hike-off really on the first upwind and then there were plenty of shifts to make it interesting,” the 28-year-old explained.
“From there I kept in second and third the whole way round and finished up third, which is good.
“It’s all reasonably close, so it’s all about trying to bring back that gold,” said Thompson looking ahead to the medal race.
“It’s going to be the same for a few guys – it’s quite close with the top three or four but hopefully we’ll get some breeze and it will be a good race.”
The British Sailing Team’s u21 Laser World and European Champion Lorenzo Chiavarini scored his best result at a senior World Championship – 11th – and narrowly missed the cut for the medal race by just one point.
Alison Young’s third place in the only race for the Laser Radial class was enough to see her into the medal race positions, and confirm Greta Britain’s country berth in the women’s single-hander at the Rio Games.
The Bewdley sailor is out of contention for the medals, but can be satisfied with her showing at just her second regatta back after an illness-affected season.
Elsewhere across the classes, Giles Scott maintained his dominant form, winning all three Finn races on Wednesday to retain the yellow jersey heading into the finals series.
“Today we’ve managed to finish the qualification and we’re into gold and silver fleets so the racing will get a lot tighter from tomorrow,” the 2011 World Champion observed.
“That’s where the regatta really starts so tomorrow’s a very important day.”
“I managed to come away with three firsts, which I’m very happy with. It was a pretty frustrating day for the fleet in general I think – the race committee had some issues holding anchor so we were delayed by a couple of hours. The result of that was we had a pretty dodgy race for the final one.
“But for me personally it was all good and I managed to get a good result in that last one as well.”
Fellow British Finn sailor Ed Wright is poised in third overall, winning the second and third races in the opposite fleet to Scott on Wednesday, after having to sit out the first one following a black flag disqualification in a previous attempted race.
Charlotte Dobson and Sophie Ainsworth bounced back from protest disqualification yesterday to win the only race for the 49erFX class today.
They top the standings in the women’s skiff event after three races, with Kate Macgregor-Katrina Best in eighth and Frances Peters-Nicola Groves in 15th.
The men’s 49er fleet completed their five qualification races, with the top 25 boats making the cut for gold fleet racing starting on Thursday.
John Pink-Stuart Bithell are the highest placed British Sailing Team crew presently, in ninth overall, with four other British pairs joining them in the finals series. Dave Evans-Ed Powys, Nic Asher-Fynn Sterritt, Stevie Morrison-Chris Grube and James Peters-Sam Batten also make the cut.
But there was disappointment for European silver medallists Dylan Fletcher and Alain Sign, as equipment breakages and crashes compounded a bad opening day on Monday, ruling out their World Championship medal chances for another year.
Top British windsurfers Nick Dempsey and Bryony Shaw didn’t much enjoy their three races in the windier conditions on Wednesday – the defending champion Dempsey citing ‘missed opportunities’ as he dropped to eighth overall with one more fleet racing day before their medal races on Friday.
Shaw is poised in fifth, and Izzy Hamilton ninth in the women’s RS:X division.
Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark are in third with just one race possible for the 470 Women’s fleet on Wednesday, while Luke Patience and Elliot Willis endured another fruitless day on the 470 Men’s race track, with no racing possible in their fleet in the dying breeze.
With just three races completed, they still need one more race to complete their qualification series.
The Nacra 17 multihull class also saw no racing on Wednesday.
Racing in Santander sees a staggered schedule across the ten classes:
12-18 September: Laser and Laser Radial
13-19 September: RS:X Men and RS:X Women
14-20 September: 470 Men and 470 Women
15-21 September: 49er, 49erFX, Finn and Nacra 17
Medal races are being broadcast in the UK on the BBC Red Button and on the BBC Sport website.
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