First they had bad luck, and then the wind failed to materialise: The fifth day of the Olympic test regatta off Rio de Janeiro did not bring the German team an abundance of luck. But other renowned sailing stars also stumbled time and again in the complicated and sometimes unpredictable wind and current conditions.
Hopeful Philipp Buhl is in eleventh place after finishing eighth in his only race of the day. In the remaining three races, the Laser vice world champion is fighting for a place in the medal final of the top ten Laser helmsmen and to catch up with the front runners, which he has so often formed himself this season. "The results lists for all the disciplines show that the top favourites are not safe here. Neither an otherwise almost unbeatable Giles Scott in the Finn dinghy nor Olympic and world champion Mathew Belcher in the 470 are dominating their fields as usual. The luck factor plays a bigger role than usual in the Olympic area of Rio. At least that's how it looks," said Philipp Buhl, who is looking forward to the final day of his Laser class: "We can sail three more races tomorrow on the Niteroi outer course. If there are conditions that I like in Rio, then it will be tomorrow's conditions. A good gradient wind is forecast for our Niteroi course. This will maximise my chances of sailing to the front again."
The shooting stars Paul Kohlhoff and Carolina Werner dropped back to third place in the Nacra 17 after great performances on the previous days in the wind poker on Wednesday with a 13th and 10th place. In the men's 470, European champions Ferdinand Gerz and Oliver Szymanski were in a promising position when the main halyard jumped out of the lock. After finishing eighth in the only race of the day, the man from Munich and his Berlin-based coxswain are now in ninth place. Gerz said: "We could have done much better today. And of course our first day was a real bummer. But there is still a lot to do. There are still five races plus medal races."
Tina Lutz and Susann Beucke are in 13th place in the 49erFX fleet after finishing tenth in just one of the day's races, while their 470 team-mates Annika Bochmann and Marlene Steinherr are 15th after five races and RS:X surfer Toni Wilhelm finished sixth on Wednesday in tenth place overall. The 49ers were forced to take a break as they were unable to complete any of their three scheduled races. Because it gets dark in Rio de Janeiro at 5.30 pm local time, the time window with starts from 1 pm is very small and leaves the race organisers little room for postponement in poor sailing conditions. Two days remain to compensate for the cancellations. On Thursday alone, 28 races are scheduled to take place. On Saturday, the medal races in all ten Olympic disciplines are on the programme.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
