No stopping Great Dane Jonas Høgh-Christensen on third day at Olymics
Jonas Høgh-Christensen (DEN) has again extended on the Finn fleet with a first and second on day three at the London 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition. Ben Ainslie (GBR) moves up to second after a better day, but has still be beat the Great Dane after six races. Jonathan Lobert (FRA) drops one place to third. The second race of the day was won by Deniss Karpak (EST).
Tuesday was crunch day for the Finns. Going into the half way stage of the regatta, Ben Ainslie (GBR) needed to make some points back before the lay day on Wednesday, while regatta leader Jonas Høgh-Christensen (DEN) was looking to consolidate his points lead and not do anything silly.
Race five was dominated by the Høgh-Christensen from start to finish. Starting in the pack, but away from the pin-end boat he hit yesterday he soon pulled ahead of the fleet and with Postma suffering gear failure on the far left, the Dane steered a confident course up the favoured left side of the course to round the top mark with a small lead over Rafa Trujillo (ESP), Ben Ainslie (GBR) and Zach Railey (USA), while several boats overstood in the strong tide. Ainslie had started in the middle and was soon in difficulty having to tack away to clear his air.
After a screaming reach towards the wing mark as the wind piped up, there was a fascinating dual between the leading bunch on the run, though Høgh-Christensen was starting to pull away from the fleet. Railey, the 2008 Silver medalist has not had a great regatta so far so was also looking for improvements today. He had moved up to second at the gate, sailing past the normally faster Ainslie. Ainslie rounded behind and had to tack away to find a lane further to the right. Høgh-Christensen seemed confident on the left and held his course before coming back with a nice lead into the second top mark.
The wind faded on the final offwind legs but Høgh-Christensen extended his lead, while Railey maintained second from Trujillo. Nirkko and Ainslie passed Trujillo and Ainslie looked to be closing on Nirkko but ran out of track. At the finish it was Høgh-Christensen, Railey, Nirkko and Ainslie, with Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic (CRO) staging an amazing recovery from 19th at the first mark to cross fifth.
Ainslie was now firmly on the backfoot and needed something special in race six. He started well, winning the pin after Postma returned and controlled the lane to the favoured left side of the course and looked to be coming into the top mark well placed. Meanwhile Høgh-Christensen was forced to tack off to find clear air and trailed on the right. However many boats overstood the top mark and first round was Trujillo from Ioannis Mitakis (GRE), Nirkko and Høgh-Christensen. Ainslie rounded in seventh.
Trujillo led down the run with Deniss Karpak (EST) moving up to second from Nirkko and Ainslie, but by the gate Karpak had made big gains to round in first from Nirkko, Ainslie and Høgh-Christensen. The Dane was forced to tack away again after he had been passed by Ainslie for the first time this week. However it was all change on the final upwind with Høgh-Christensen splitting from the fleet and making places all the way up to second to round behind Karpak. Trujillo rounded third from Vasilij Zbogar (SLO) while Ainslie slipped to fifth.
Karpak extended down the run to lead into the finish and win by nearly a minute. Høgh-Christensen rounded in second but Ainslie had caught up for a thrilling spray filled chase to the line, but the Dane held on for second with Ainslie third, Trujillo fourth and Zbogar fifth.
Despite dropping one place to third, Lobert said, "I am pretty happy so far. Third overall after three days means I am still in the game. We still have four races to go and so I will take it day by day, race by race like I have done since the beginning. And I always try my hardest to catch up the most boats I can when I am behind. Today I was 15th and 17th at the first mark which is not so good." Lobert recovered to place 6th and 7th today.
"The racing is very tight. The wind today was a bit strange, very up and down and sometimes there was some oil on the water. On the first upwinds I didn't know exactly what to do. I was just looking around and missed most of the shifts. Then slowly, slowly I came back during the race and so I am pretty happy with that."
"I want to improve my first upwind. If I can be top six round the first mark I have good chance to win the race, like I almost did yesterday. I maybe have to take more risks on the start line. In the first race today the Greek was just above me and he was OCS. I thought we were pretty high but I held back. But I also need to improve my tactics. I need to have a better plan for the first upwind, as most of the time I don't have a plan and not sure what to do. I just try for the start and then react to where I am, which is not so good."
