Olympic Games 1996

470 MEN - RACE 1 RACE REPORT

The first race of the Men's Double-handed discipline (470) commenced today with winds coming from the south-southwest at 6-8 knots, and seas of approximately two feet with moderate chop.

Starting on time at 13:06 with winds of 210 degrees, there were individual recalls for JPN, HKG, RUS and POR. Only RUS and POR restarted correctly. The Finnish duo of Petri Leskinen and Mika Aarnikka were first off the start line at the leeward end; whilst Sweden's Marcus Westerlind and Henrik Wallin led from the boat end. With a breeze going to the left, the boats were at the first windward mark by 13:20 led by the Spanish, followed by CRO, HUN, CAN, SWE, TPE, UKR, SUI, ISR, POR and GRE.

At the wing mark Spain still retained the lead, although Hungary moved up into 2nd place, followed by CRO, UKR, SWE, ISR, CAN, POR, GRE, RUS and UKR.

At the second windward mark, approximately forty minutes after the start the Spanish 1992 Barcelona Gold medalists, Jordi Calafat and Francisco Sanchez, still held their led with CRO reclaiming 2nd place from HUN followed by UKR, POR, EST, NZL, ITA, CAN, SWE, GRE and Fin.

Dominating from the start ESP extended their lead on the finishing reach to win by a large margin from second placed Ukrainian team, Yevhen Braslavets and Ihor Matviyenko, who had been working their way up the fleet since the start. Following behind were CRO, HUN, POR, SWE, EST, NZL, ITA and CAN. The current top ranked sailors in the World, the Greek duo of Andreas Kosmatopoulos and Kostas Trigonis placed 11th.