London 2012 day six: Percy, Simpson and Ainslie assured of medals

As British sailors dominate the 470s

Laser

The Lasers had their first race on the Nothe before joining the Radials on the Harbour course. On the Nothe they sailed a four lap windward-leeward and on the Harbour course, a trapezoid.

First to the top mark in race one was Argentina's Julio Alsogaray ahead of Sweden's Rasmus Myrgren and Uruguay's Alejandro Foglia. Britain's Paul Goodison was ninth and Aussie favourite Tom Slingsby 13th, both having to carry out penalty turns for touching the mark. On the first run Portugese veteran Gustavo Lima pulled up to third with Goodison still ninth and Slingsby 11th.

On the second beat Myrgren pulled into the lead but was passed by the Argentinean and Portugese sailors on the next run. These positions held to the fourth and final top mark rounding with Goodison in 17th and Slingsby also down the pan in 18th. But France's Jean Baptiste Bernaz sailed a blinders of a final run to round the last mark on the transom of Alsogaray to take second place on the line with Lima third. Tom Slingsby ended up 15th with Goodison 18th.

Back in the Harbour for race two and it was Singapore's Colin Cheng who was punching above his weight to win the race to the top mark, ahead of Slingsby and Canada's David Wright. Goodison was buried once again, rounding in 22nd. On the run, Wright was rolled by the Uruguayan Alejandro Foglia. The front trio remained in these positions until the third run when the Foglia just rounded the leeward gate ahead of the Australian.

However Slingsby fought back on the final run to pull finally into the lead at the top mark to take the bullet at the finish just ahead of the tenatious Cheng with Goodison having pulled back to 12th.

With Cypriot Pavlos Kontides posting a 4-12-7 to Slingsby's 2-14-2, the Aussie has reclaimed the lead but only by a five point margin and with a bigger discard than Kontides. Britains' Paul Goodison scored a 9-17-12 which is not up to his normal standard but is a valient effort considered that he is still suffering from horrendous backpain.

Once again Goodison was understandably fairly distraught when he came ashore: "It is really shifty out there and the biggest problem is that I just haven’t got 100% upwind. The harder I try the more it hurts and I haven’t got the power to push the boat through the water upwind. If you are not out in the front row and popping out you are in the pack and it is always difficult from there. Downwind the speed is really good, but that is when the injuries is taken out. But when you are in a position like that it is hard - I’m trying the best I can, but when you are not 100% you cannot hope to compete with some of these guys."

Goodison confirms he will keep going but he is clearly suffering in the process. "You only get one chance every four years and you have to do the best you can. Unfortunately the body isn’t in the position to be out there in front."

Slingsby seemed to have benefitted from the layday to spark a return to form. "I tried to reset and set my mind," he said. "I know that if I do get away I am hard to catch, so I was really happy in the last one to get off the line and get a good race. For me it was a personal victory. It felt that I broke the trend a bit. I feel really confident now heading into tomorrow.

"In that flat water we are all so similar speeds and in that first race there were no overtaking lanes - everyone ahead of me was on the shifts and I had the choice to go off the shifts to try and pass them, but that just doesn’t work. So it was really follow the leader-type stuff. The second race I got to the top mark in good shape and went on from there."

As to the second race, Slingsby says he knows the Singaporean sailor well as he lives in Sydney. "He is a very good sailor. Once I finally passed him, I thought 'now I will be able to slowly extend away' but that wasn’t the case - he just kept coming down that last run. And I started to get a bit nervous. I had the jury on me and I’d got a yellow flag earlier today, so I had to be pretty careful.

"Tomorrow we get back in the waves and hopefully I can find that little speed edge again."

See the race reports on the Finn, Star, 470 Men, 470 Women, 49er, Laser Men, Laser Women, Rick Tomlinson's photo gallery and Carlo Borlenghi's photo gallery.

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