Olympic Games 1996

FINN - RACE 7 RACE REPORT - 26 July 1996

The seventh race for the Men's Single-handed Dinghy (Finn) started at 14:25 in a 10 knot breeze from 250 degrees. In the two foot swell, Luca Devoti (ITA) and Hans Spitzauer (AUT) took good starts at the pin end of the line while the rest of the fleet chose the Committee boat end. Vasco Batista (POR) was a victim of a PMS and therefore had to re-cross the start line.

In the continuing light conditions which seemed to favour the European competitors, Roy Heiner (NED), led round the first windward mark followed by Devoti, Phillippe Presti (FRA), Bjorn Westergaard (DEN) and Sebastien Godefroid (BEL). Heiner sailed his best race so far, taking out 10 boat lengths down the run from Devoti and Presti. Jose Maria van der Ploeg, the 1992 defending Spanish gold medalist, was well back in the fleet.

Heiner maintained his leading position at the second windward mark with Richard Clarke (CAN) managing to break through to second place ahead of Westergaard (DEN) and Spitzauer (AUT). On the following two legs Heiner (NED) increased his lead to 37 seconds with Westergaard (DEN) moving from seventh to second. Spitzauer (AUT), from sixth to fourth. The Italian, Devoti, dropped back from second to seventh and Presti (FRA) from third to eighth.

After a runaway victory, Heiner, winner of the 1993 IYRU Nations Cup Grand Final and runner up at the World Match Racing Championship last year, said: "I got it right at the start. I got the first two windshifts after the start and then they couldn't catch me. I also sailed into the favourable current on the downwind legs which got stronger and stronger as the day went on."

Tomasz Holc, Team Leader and Chairman of the Sydney 2000 Working Party, commented on the performance of Mateusz Kusznierwicz (POL) who scored a first and second today to the lead the Finn standings, said: "He sailed very well indeed today. At 21 he is one of the youngest Finn sailors in the Olympic Games and has only been sailing in the class for four years. He was runner up in the European Championship and was the Junior Champion. He is also the World Champion in the OK Dinghy Single-handed class."

Going into the eighth race on 27 July, Kusznierwicz (POL) leads by one point with a total scoring of 10-4-20-4-9-1-2 (30 points) and Hans Spitzauer (AUT) in second with a scoring of 4-1-10-7-11-4-5 (31 points).

Finish: NED, POL, CAN, DEN, AUT and BRA.