Olympic Games 1996

470 WOMEN - RACE 10 RACE REPORT - 30 July 1996

The defending 1992 gold medalist Theresa Zabell and 1994 IYRU Sperry Top-Sider World Sailor of the Year winner with her crew Begona Via Dufresne, today showed their skill to regain overall lead in the Women's Double-handed Dinghy (470) event.

Zabell and Via Dufresne won their second race of the series, plus a third, and are now on 24 points after two discards, five points ahead of Yumiko Shige and Alicia Kinoshita (JPN) who also sailed very well today, with a first and a sixth to be on 29 points.

The Ukrainian team of Ruslana Taran and Olena Pakholchik (UKR) were the "comeback kids" today, returning to re-start after being over the line at the gun in Race 9 - and still finished fourth. In Race 10 they were fourth again, fighting back from seventh at the first mark. They are third overall on 36 points.

However, the 470 women sailors will have to wait until their final race on Thursday to decide the winners of the gold, silver and bronze medals of this 1996 Centennial Olympic Regatta.

After two general recalls for Race 10, the Race Committee lengthened the start line and the 22 boat fleet took off in 10 knots of building seabreeze coming from the south south-east. An individual recall was signalled at the start and two boats returned to the start.

JPN was slow to accelerate at the gun and was passed by the fleet, they tacked to port as soon as they could to get clear. ESP had a conservative start at the boat end of the line and went to the left side of the course. On the way upwind, JPN kept to the middle of the course, ESP and ITA sailed on the left side.

Over the last third of the windward leg, JPN, on starboard, crossed astern of ESP and ITA were sailing on port. JPN kept their cool and continued sailing to the left where they picked a lift and passed ESP just at the windward mark. The Italian crew of Federica Salva and Emanuela Sossi, who had sailed all the way to the left layline, rounded the first windward mark in first place followed by Susanne Bauckholt and Kathrin Adlkofer (GER), JPN and ESP. UKR rounded seventh and Kris Stookey and Louis van Voorhis (USA) were eighth.

By this stage, the wind had increased to 10 - 12 knots and on the reach, ESP overtook the lightweight Japanese crew to windward. At mark two, ITA rounded first followed by GER, ESP, JPN, UKR, DEN and USA. everyone kept on starboard tack, with no one gybing at the mark.

On the downwind leg, JPN lost two places. ESP, sailing fast downwind rounded mark three only 14 seconds behind ITA, with GER in third place followed by UKR, JPN and USA.

After mark three, the leaders went left for a short period of time to clear the fleet coming downwind. ITA tacked to starboard to cover ESP, JPN followed shortly after to clear air from UKR. The fleet kept going to the left side of the course. There was little change on this second beat to windward, other than USA sailing past JPN, the wind now at 12 - 15 knots.

On the downwind leg, ESP just overtook ITA at the round mark, gybing inside. The last leg was a screaming reach to the finish and while the Spanish gold medalist at Barcelona kept command of the race, GER overtook ITA to finish second, third going to ITA followed by UKR, USA and JPN.

After the race Theresa Zabell (ESP) said: "I felt that both sides of the course were pretty equal today. I was more concerned by covering the top sailors. It's not over. We have to race in the final race tomorrow."

Leigh Pearson (CAN) commented on the Japanese crew: "They are lighter and they are a little bit slower in the breeze, but they are very smart."