New Zealand sailors Isaac McHardie and William McKenzie are strong contenders going into the men's 49er class medal race.
With the medal race on Thursday (Friday NZ Time) counting for double points, positions can change quickly. At present, the New Zealanders sit in third on 76 points, just behind leaders Spain (68) and Ireland (73).
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McHardie and McKenzie, who were third going into Wednesday's (Thursday NZT) racing, opened with a win to climb back to the top of the leaderboard, but had disappointing 10th and 15th placings to slide back to third overall.
“We're stoked to be in a position to medal even if the last race didn't quite go to plan. It's all to race for tomorrow. We'll leave everything out there and hopefully we can make New Zealand proud," McKenzie said.
In the women’s 49erFX class, Jo Aleh and Molly Meech, after their strong second day, had placings of 14th, eighth and seventh on Wednesday to lift themselves into seventh overall.
With the top-10 crews qualifying for Thursday's double-points medal race, they will be back in action, not something that looked likely after their forgettable first day of competition.
“We thought it was our last sail,” said Meech. “We’re pretty stoked. Today, we didn’t have a good start, but then we put together two solid races.”
Aleh said the pair were busy celebrating their last sail when they learned they were into the medal race.
“Now we get to do it all again. We’ll go out and fight for everything.”
In the men’s windsurfing, Josh Armit, who began the day 10th, made some important gains.
With placings of 11th, second, sixth and fourth on Wednesday, he has lifted himself into fifth place with 50 points. Australian Grae Morris leads with 41, with Poland, Israel and Netherlands boats in between on a tight leaderboard.
There is still a lot of racing left, which ends with a series of quarterfinals, semifinals and final for the leading boats.
In the women’s windsurfing, Veerle ten Have was lagging in 16th position but solid placings of 11th, third, fifth and third have lifted her to eighth position and still in contention.