Reigning Champions Fight Back At Optimist European Sailing Championships

With a forecast for the weather to deteriorate tomorrow, which hitherto has been glorious, it was decided to change the original schedule and run two races today at the Optimist European Sailing Championships on Dublin Bay. In fact the day became a race against time as mist thickened into fog and several races had to be shortened for safety reasons.

Two races, numbered seven and eight, were successfully sailed for the Gold fleet but Race 8 for both the Silver and Bronze fleets had to be postponed until tomorrow.

In the boys' Gold fleet four of the leading sailors had poor results which they will use as discards. Kasper Nordenram (Sweden) with places 6 and 15 slightly reduced the lead held by French sailor Enzo Balanger who nevertheless has a healthy 14 point margin. The main beneficiary was reigning champion Tytus Butowski from Poland who has now moved into bronze medal position.

Irish sailor James McCann from Cork had a mixed day, discarding his second result of the day, and is now in 14th place.

In the girls event Reigning champion Mara Turيn of Slovenia continues to struggle back from her disappointing first day with a 3rd place in Race 7 and 7th in Race 8. She is now placed 4th, just two points away from the podium. However current leader Ebru Bolat (Romania) with scores of 2 and 8 maintained the gap. Iset Segura of Spain remains in Silver medal spot but Zürich sailor Maria Müller has now moved up into Bronze place. Race 7 was won by Marsha Binte Sharin of Singapore and Race 8 by Alexandra Stalder (Italy).

Three Irish girls had qualified for their Gold fleet, a feat achieved by only two other countries. Race 7 made little different to their rankings