All 2 weeks of the sailing Olympics itBoat maintains «logbook», telling about the main events and achievements of each day.
Yesterday was a very eventful day.
The Dutch and Australians were the first to go the distance. The first sensation of the Olympics was that the unbeaten Australian crew made their first mistake of the regatta! The score in this pair is 1:1 by flytimes of the day. Then the Finnish racers went up against the world number one American Anne Tankliffe. And here is the second sensation -
The Russian and British crews' dispute was very serious. Lucy MacGregor's crew not only is second in the world ranking, but also performs on home waters. As a consequence, they know the local conditions very well and are very well motivated. So, a hard fight here was obvious and predictable, but even so, what was going on in the first flute, hardly anyone expected. Only during the fight in the pre-start area both crews managed to catch each other at foul once, Skudina was forced to false start and come back, simultaneously spinning a penalty U-turn. Meanwhile the British had a good start, our girls could catch up with her only at the first low mark where - tough luck! - again got a penalty. But, apparently, the Skudina's crew had a very aggressive attitude - she not only spun a penalty U-turn, but also caught up with McGregor at the top sign and managed to pass him first! The British crew were ahead of our girls the rest of the way, but made a mistake and hit our boat with their noses. A protest, penalty - and Skudina easily finishes the first! 1:0.
But the second heat followed a completely different scenario. Either the British got ready and tuned up, or Katin's crew got tired and burned out, but the fact is that after winning the start, McGregor led the entire distance, didn't make any significant mistakes and calmly won the flytow, making the score 1:1.
It's hard to say what it was about, but during the second flyte, the Brit showed more speed on the course, it was clearly visible during the broadcast. She was ahead by about a hull on a full course, but on the second tack Scudina fell into the windward shadow. Besides, one could see that Katya was very nervous and was jerking herself and her crew.
Tomorrow Ekaterina Skudina will have to start from scratch.
The women RS:X medal race was very interesting. While for men it was clear(Dorian van Rijsselberg from Holland guaranteed the gold medal with two races to go before the finals), for women it was not so easy and the competition was very tough. Ukraine's Olga Maslivets, who had a good start and led the race and had a chance to win the medal. She had enough strength only till the last full course, where she lost to a strong Spaniard. To Marina AlabauOlga got only fourth and lost to a strong Spaniard who eventually became an Olympic champion. Olga finished only fourth, separated from the silver medal by only two points.
It's a pity because sailing is excluded from Olympic sailing disciplines and it seems that Olga will never get another chance like this again. So many years of training and efforts - and all in vain. But for now it should be mentioned that this result is the best result shown on this Olympics by yachtsmen from the former USSR. «So even according to» we are still in zeros.After taking the
There is only one Katya left.
Live broadcasts of the sailing races (although without commentary) can be seen on Sportbox,schedule of all races and results on the ISAF website, and daily report on the performance of the Russian team on the website of the Russian Sailing Federation.
