A medal - but which colour?

Andrew Preece was on the water in Athens today to watch the 49er action unfold

The die is cast in the 49er fleet in a defining day that pumped British Gold medal hopes to bursting point at the end of the first race of the day and then deflated them as the wind evaporated over the course of the two next races.

Chris Draper and Simon Hiscocks got out of bed this morning to find a stiff offshore wind blowing. Today was the day they needed to perform to begin work on the nine point deficit that the Spanish had managed to open out. On the tips of their toes and revelling in 15+ knots of wind, Draper and Hiscocks turned it on to win Race 13 with relative ease.

The pair came fast out of the start, opened up a lead, temporarily surrendered it for a few minutes on the second upwind leg, but arrived at the top mark ahead and sailed away to victory. The news got better behind them as the Spanish got stuck in traffic on several occasions, and where the British looked smooth and effortless around the boat, Iker Martinez was looking increasingly uncomfortable and disgruntled; when things are going well on the 49er both helm and crew are lying flat on their backs with just their heads cocked up to look around. The stance improves righting moment and increases speed compared to the hunched sitting position that often becomes necessary in the pack where looking around for good shifts and other boats becomes a more pressing priority.

By the finish of Race 13 Draper and Hiscocks could not have asked for much more as Ukraine finished in sixth and Spain was back in eighth. It took the British to within two points of Gold and suddenly it was all on.

But even as the tailenders were finishing the wind was beginning to dwindle and by the start of Race 14 it was patchy and hard. A poor start was the end of the story and Draper and Hiscocks struggled to rally to ninth as Martinez and Fernandez returned a second place.

But if that news was not bad enough it was about to get worse as another boxed in second rank start saw them back in the teens at the first mark. The irony was that Martinez and Fernandez started even more poorly but dipped the entire fleet on port, hooked over to the right where Draper and Hiscocks had found fallow ground in the previous race and came back in the leading bunch. Percentage sailing gave them a fourth place finish and GBR rallied to sixth but the arithmetic is looking less than enticing for a team who, like Ben Ainslie, saw medalling as a reasonable aim but Gold as the real prospect.

The good news is that the British, like the Ukrainians two points ahead of them and the Spanish 11 points up stream, are guaranteed a medal of some description. The issue is whether to take the Spanish on and try to sail them down the pack - which would be difficult given that Draper and Hiscocks need to finish 12 places ahead and can not afford to discount the Ukrainians - or to work on winning silver by putting two boats between themselves and the Ukrainians.

"I’m pretty disappointed but on the plus side we can still win it and we will go out and do everything possible to win it," said Chris Draper. "We will just concentrate on sailing a good race and hopefully things will take care of themselves."

Over on the Star course, the fleet was picking up a single race lost to the fickleness of yesterday and it was a race that Iain Percy and Steve Mitchell needed to bring home as a counter to give them hope as they pass the halfway stage. The Swede Freddie Loof avenged five dreadful races when he rounded the first mark in third, upgraded to first and sailed away to win. The good news was that Torben Grael - despite rounding the second top mark in second place - ended up with his equal worst score; the problem was that this was only as low as fifth.

After a collision with Peter Bromby in the pre-start that took their jib out, for World Champion Ross Macdonald and Mike Wolfs of Canada claimed themselves a points upgrade in the protest room after the race when they were awarded average points. "Our jib blew into 400 pieces," said Wolfs. "We were unable to put up another sail but we wanted to finish the race [they crossed the line last which offers a slightly better score than a DNF] and save the points."

It makes the British quest for Silver more difficult although, after a race where they were up and down the leaderboard and at one point as low as seventh and another as high as second going on to finish third, they are back in seventh place but only three points behind Paul Cayard and Phil Trinter in Bronze. Percy and Mitchell have been waiting for more wind but when more wind came they sailed well though they never looked faster but are still optimistic about the next four days.

"It’s an 11 race series and most winners average six points a race,’ said Steve Mitchell when he came ashore. "We’ve got to sail our own race and try and get some points back. It was always going to be tough with 11 people here who have won the "orlds. There are certainly no idiots out there."

Meanwhile Torben Grael is looking increasingly dominant, never short of speed and where others are finding the shifty conditions difficult to read, Grael is finding a successful rhythm. Though there are still five races to sail, it would take a huge tumble from top form or a remarkable rally elsewhere to unseat the Brazilian from the top of the podium. But Grael is refusing to contemplate what is looking increasingly inevitable saying "It’s too early to take any notice of the overall scores, we are still in the middle of the event."

Tomorrow the windsurfers are back on the race course alongside the Tornados and Stars. There is a compelling fight at the front of both Men’s and Women’s boards and with explosive characters competing in each, it could be fireworks time.