French sneak into lead

Blustery Auckland day for the competitors at the Tornado Worlds

The French team of Yann Guichard and Alexandre Guyander have rocketed up the standings to take the lead at the 2008 Tornado World Championship at the end of day two.

Tuesday morning’s cloudy skies cleared during the afternoon and a steady south westerly breeze of 18-23 knots with the occasional squall made for exciting and close racing on day two of the regatta.

Starting the day lying fifth overall Guichard and Guyander led the fleet around the race track in the first race of the day winning race 3 from Aussies Bundock and Ashby who were second. In race 4 the top placed French pair placed third to sit at the top of the leader board two points clear of their nearest rivals.

While overnight leaders Roland Gaebler and Gunnar Struckman of Germany relinquished the top spot they only slipped to second overall. In racing today they were 4th and then 9th.

Mitch Booth and Pim Nieuwenhuis of the Netherlands hold onto third place overall and are now four points adrift of Gaebler and Struckman.

The Canadian duo of Oskar Johansson and Kevin Stittle impressed today with a 3rd in race 3 and then winning race 4 to move from 8th overall up to 4th place clearly signalling their determination to earn one of the final Olympic berths on offer. They are now the best placed of the ten countries fighting for four places.

Australian representatives Darren Bundock and Glenn Ashby came out firing on day two and brought home two 2nd’s to improve their overall standing after a poor first day on the water on Monday. At the outset of racing today they were back in 19th place but now feature well inside the top ten in 8th overall after four races sailed.

New Zealand is the second best placed of the nations looking for qualification with Aaron McIntosh and Mark Kennedy sailing well today and moving up into 7th overall. Race 4 was tight and Kennedy recounts that the finish was close.

“That last race three of us went through the finish line at the same time, it was so close,” said Kennedy. “We were the third of those three.”

Behind Canada and New Zealand in the race for Olympic qualification Russia is next best placed with Kirilyuk and Ushkov currently in 13th place, while Hagara and Steinacher of Austria are in 15th place.

Racing resumes Wednesday with a planned start time of 1pm and a further two races scheduled.

	Nat	Helm	Crew	R1	R2	R3	R4	Total
1st	FRA	Yann Guichard	Alexandre Guyander	4	9	1	3	17
2nd	GER	Roland Gaebler	Gunnar Struckman	3	3	4	9	19
3rd	NED	Mitch Booth	Pim Nieuwenhuis	7	2	6	8	23
4th	CAN	Oskar Johansson	Kevin Stittle	21	1	3	1	26
5th	ITA	Francesco Marcolini	Edoardi Bianchi	11	7	10	5	33
6th	ESP	Fernando Echavarri	Anton Paz	1	14	8	11	34
7th	NZL	Aaron McIntosh	Mark Kennedy	17	8	5	7	37
8th	AUS	Darren Bundock	Glen Ashby	14	23	2	2	41
9th	FRA	Billy Besson	Arnaud Jarlegan	19	20	7	4	50
10th	FRA	Xavier Revil	Cristophe Espagnon	18	12	14	6	50
11th	ARG	Santiago Lange	Carlos Espinola	15	10	13	12	50
12th	BEL	Carolijn Brouwer	SEbastian Godefroid	12	11	19	10	52
13th	RUS	Andrey Kirilyuk	Valeriy Ushkov	16	13	15	13	57
14th	GBR	Andrew Walsh	Edward Barney	5	4	21	28	58
15th	AUT	Roman Hagara	Hans Peter Steinacher	10	25	12	15	62
16th	GBR	Rob Wilson	Mark Bulkeley	13	15	11	23	62
17th	GRE	Iordanis Paschalidis	Konstantinos Trigonis	6	24	20	16	66
18th	UKR	Pavlo Kalynchev	Andriy Shanfranyuk	9	19	24	21	73
19th	DEN	Allan Norregaard	Michael Risoer	22	18	17	22	79
20th	GER	Johannes Polgar	Florian Spalteholy	27	22	18	14	81
21st	PUR	Enrique Figueroa	Jorge Hernandez	8	17	28	32	85
22nd	USA	John Lovell	Charlie Ogletree	2	5	29	52 DNF	88
23rd	ESP	Toni Rivas	Fabian Escude	34	6	36	17	93
24th	GBR	John Gimson	Stuart Bithell	26	29	16	27	98
25th	AUT	Thomas Zajac	Thomas Czajka	29	16	25	31	101
26th	GBR	Leigh McMillan	Will Howden	20	21	9	52 DNF	102
27th	AUS	Rohan langworthy	Jack Punch Benson	25	34	31	18	108
28th	RUS	Sergey Dzhienbaev	Maxim Semenov	24	40	27	20	111
29th	NZL	Rex Sellers	Brett Sellers	32	26	23	33	114
30th	BRA	Bruno Di Bernaldi	Mario Tinoco	33	27	35	26	121
31st	NZL	Bruce Kendall	Blair Tuke	31	38	30	24	123
32nd	CHN	You Jia Lao	Xiu Ke Chen	30	37	34	25	126
33rd	AUS	Brett Burvill	Ryan Duffield	35	33	32	30	130
34th	POL	Piotr Kowalewski	Maciey Klosowicz	37	31	33	34	135
35th	GBR	Tom Phipps	Marcus Lynch	43	52 DNF	22	19	136
36th	GER	Tino Mittlemeier	Niko Mittlemeier	23	32	52 DNF	29	136
37th	NZL	Nigel Williams	Jeremy Stephenson	38	36	26	39	139
38th	NZL	Dave Shaw	Susan Shaw	36	35	37	37	145
39th	NZL	Paul Francis	Aaron Duncan	40	28	52 DNF	36	156
40th	VEN	Saba Yamil	Cendiza Gonzala	39	39	38	41	157
41st	GER	Eckart Kaphengst	Rasmus Topsch	28	30	52 DNF	52 DNC	162
42nd	CHN	Bo Lin	Shanfeng Yang	44	42	39	38	163
43rd	AUS	Damian Ford	Mark Edmonds	52 DNS	41	40	35	168
44th	NZL	David Mead	Chris Burgess	48	43	42	40	173
45th	AUS	Paul Peterson	Matt Thackray	42	44	44	44	174
46th	AUS/GBR	Stephen Medwell	Stuart Offer	41	52 DNF	41	43	177
47th	AUS	Allan Gamble	Kim Nicholas	46	46	45	42	179
48th	GER/NZL	Justus Wolf	Justus Maus	45	45	43	46	179
49th	CHN	An Jie Lu	Xue Hai Zhuang	47	52 DNF	48	45	192
50th	NZL	William Caunce	Andrew Springford	52 DNF	47	46	47	192
51st	AUS	Paul Raymond	Nicholas Raymond	49	48	47	48	192