Ben Ainslie was frustrated in his quest for his third successive Olympic title this morning with the Finn class medal race abandoned after 30 minutes with Ainslie in gold medal position.
Ainslie and the Yngling trio of Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson, will now go for gold on Sunday as the medal races are rolled over a day due to light winds.
Racing had eventually got underway earlier with Ainslie, who needs to finish no more than five boats behind second-placed Zach Railey (USA) to win gold, immediately going on the attack forcing his American rival to the back of the fleet and pinning him in 10th and last place in the 10-boat medal race fleet.
But with 30 minutes of the race elapsed and with the boats taking part in what had effectively become competitive floating race officials took the brave call to abandon the race at 1450 (local time).
“It was massively frustrating – I felt like I had one hand on the trophy there,” Ainslie commented. “I’m going to have to come out fighting tomorrow and try to do it all again.”
Ainslie also confirmed the pair had exchanged words.
“We had a little chat towards the middle of the race just before it got abandoned,” Ainslie revealed. “He was just saying he wanted to hold on to silver or bronze. I was telling him that’s the situation with the Olympics – when it comes to the crunch you’ve got to make sure of it and with the conditions like they were today you can’t leave anything to chance.
“You’ve got to try and get in front of your opponent and try to nail them down.”
If either or both classes fail to complete their medal race tomorrow the medal race can be rolled over one more day to Monday. If still no race has taken place by close of play Monday, the gold medallists would be determined by current standings.
Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes finally got some racing in the 49er class after two days of postponements. They qualified for tomorrow’s scheduled medal race in ninth place, with a highest possible finishing place of seventh overall.
In the 470 women’s event Christina Bassadone and Saskia Clark also lie ninth overall heading into Monday’s medal race and Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield will fight for silver in the 470 men’s medal race – just three points off the medal places.
With one Laser and Radial race sailed apiece, Penny Clark picked up a third to move up from 10th overall to sixth after five races, while Paul Goodison posted a race five ninth to drop from the top of the Laser leaderboard to fourth, but just three points shy of the top spot.
In the Tornados Will Howden and Leigh McMillan added an eighth and 13th to their opening race sixth yesterday to be placed 10th overall. Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson in the Star finished 13th in their first race of this morning, following that up with a second, to move to eighth overall.
In the RS:Xs, who had no racing to add to their overnight scores, Nick Dempsey currently lies in bronze medal position in men's event and Bryony Shaw fifth in the women's fleet.
Schedule of racing – Sunday 17 August (times are local)
Course A: 1300 hrs – Yngling medal race
Course A: 1400 hrs – Finn medal race
Course A: 1500 hrs – 49er medal race
Course B: 1200hrs – RS:X men and women (3 races)
Course C: 1200hrs – Laser and Laser Radial (3 races each)
Course E: 1200hrs – Star and Tornado (3 races each)