Freak storm

Sunday 24 August will be used for the final races of the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Sailing Competition after light wind, a freak storm and further light breeze forced a third day of postponements.

After a day of waiting for wind to materialise the breeze suddenly picked up late in the afternoon. Those on shore away from the windows could have been forgiven for thinking that was that for the day when they heard the horn sound around the sailing venue but upon looking outside a consistent breeze around 10-15 knots was blowing. As the Byte CII sailors launched things started to get a bit fruity on the water as the winds picked up and started gusting up to 30 knots.
 
The Race Committee did not hesitate in sending the sailors back ashore to wait for the storm to pass through and once it did, the breeze dropped considerably and the decision to cancel the day was made at 16:30.
 
The competition was scheduled to conclude on Saturday 23 August with a non discardable, single race for all fleets on the agenda. The pre-planned reserve day will be utilised to ensure the completion of the regatta. Sunday's outlook is positive with 4-5 knots predicted from three sources with gusts of seven, nine and even up 12 knots possible. Moderate to heavy rain is also on the forecast.
 
Regardless of what happens on Sunday, four new Youth Olympic champions will be crowned in the Boy's and Girl's Byte CII and Techno 293 fleets.
 
Racing is scheduled to commence at 11:00 local time. The Girl's Byte CII fleet will be up first followed by the Boy's Byte CII, Boy's Techno 293 and Girl's Techno 293.
 
China's Linli Wu is perfectly primed to take gold for her nation in the Girl's Techno 293 fleet. The Chinese sailor is seven points clear of Russia's Mariam Sekhposyan and France's Lucia Pianazza and needs to finish seventh or better to claim gold. Wu has yet to finish outside of the top seven and has mastered the light winds of Lake Jinniu so she will be hard to overthrow on the final day.

Behind Sekhposyan and Pianazza, who are tied on 16 points, Aimee Van't Hoff (NED) has 22 points and Duangkamon Phongern (THA) has 31 points. The Dutch sailor will need to put in a good performance to take a medal whilst the Thai racer would need to win the race and hope the others finish at the back of the pack.

It is all to play for in the Boy's Techno 293 with eight points separating the top seven. As it stands, Russia's Maxim Tokarev is at the top of the pack on 16 points but that will count for very little on the final day with Argentina's Francisco Saubidet Birkner a point behind and Dutch sailor Lars van Someren on 19 points.

Israel's Yoav Omer sits on 22, France's Tom Monnet and Hong Kong's Tsz Kit Chan have 23 and New Zealand's Finn Croft has 24 points. The top racers have shared the victories over the six race period and it will be game on for gold on the final day.

23/8/2014 17:31