Wednesday is the last day of the opening series races in the Paris Olympics men's skiff class, and with their consistent showing since Monday, Ireland's Robert Dickson (HYC) and Sean Waddilove (SSC) appear certain—barring any further setbacks such as race six—to earn one of the top ten places in Thursday's all-important medal race decider, which counts for double points and cannot be discarded.
As Afloat reported on Tuesday, the men's skiff fleet faced a challenging day with patchy winds, but the Spanish team of Diego Botin and Florian Trittel soared with finishes of 3, 2, 2, securing an 11-point lead!
The steely Dubliners held onto second place after counting 4,13,9 in a day that saw New Zealand leaders Isaac McHardie and Will McKenzie drop to third after struggling with the conditions.
Great Britain's James Peters and Fynn Sterritt had a strong finish to the day, moving to fourth overall.
The battle to make the top 10 boats for Thursday’s Medal Race (to which all crews carry their cumulative score) is particularly fierce. Standings were tightened considerably after yesterday’s tricky wind conditions and few crews, with the exception of overall leaders Spain, escaped unscathed.
The Spaniards moved into pole position (on 35 points) thanks to two seconds and a third place on Tuesday. Dickson (Howth Yacht Club) and Waddilove (Skerries Sailing Club) are currently on 46 points but New Zealand are just a point behind them. Great Britain are only a further six points adrift and USA are on a score of 58.
None of the top 15 crews has more than 80 points so all still have a shot of qualifying, and the Irish duo will be hoping to keep their scores to a minimum on this crucial day to guarantee their top 10 spot, and a chance to race for the medals on Thursday.
There has been no comeback for the Dutch favourites in the Men’s Skiff fleet. Bart Lambriex and Floris van de Werken have been the standout team of recent years, winning three out of the last four world championships. But they just haven’t found their groove so far this week. A lacklustre day keeps them in 10th overall, yet still within striking distance of the podium if the Dutch can reignite the magic on the final day of fleet racing on Wednesday.
"It’s probably fair to say that no one hit their groove on Tuesday", said Andy Rice of World Sailing.
With the wind blowing over the top of the 500-metre high Calanques mountains, it was extremely patchy and highly variable in wind strength, Rice noted.
Somehow, the Spanish team, Diego Botin and Florian Trittel, managed to grind out three great finishes from a difficult afternoon, scores of 3,2,2 lifting them into an 11-point lead over Dickson and Waddilove, who cleverly maintained second overall.
"I feel the same as I did at the beginning of the week; I think our process is to just take it race by race and not get too emotional with everything, which seems to be working," said Sean Waddilove. " I think the best way to stay on the results card up at the top end is to stay pretty neutral; you can't get too happy about things and you can't get too disappointed about things either, especially on a day like today that has massive up and downs in the fleet."
Former yellow bib wearers Isaac McHardie and Will McKenzie (NZL) just couldn’t make sense of the fluky conditions and dropped to third while a race win at the end of a strong day lifts Great Britain’s James Peters and Fynn Sterritt to fourth overall.
It’s very tight on points between a lot of teams, however, so Wednesday will be equally or even more stressful than Tuesday....
Wednesday, July 31st, 49er men's skiff provisional schedule
- 1.50 pm: Robert Dixon and Seán Waddilove (Sailing, Skiff, Race 10)
- 2.45 pm: Robert Dixon and Seán Waddilove (Sailing, Skiff, Race 11)
- 3.37 pm: Robert Dixon and Seán Waddilove (Sailing, Skiff, Race 12)
RTE TV coverage from approximately 4 pm.
Read Afloat's Paris 2024 Event page to read all our articles of this triennial.