Olympic Sailing 2024: Austrian duo lead Mixed Dinghy while Italians dominate Mixed Multihull

Lara Vadlau and Lukas Maehr continued their rise up the rankings with another consistent series of races in the Mixed Dinghy.

The Austrian crew began the day in second, but moved up to lead the fleet, following an impressive win in race six in tricky, light winds.

Spain’s Jordi Xammar and Nora Brugman also mastered the mild conditions, with a sixth and third, pushing them back up to second overall.

Japan’s Keiju Okada and Miho Yoshioka experienced their weakest day on the water so far after a few tactical mistakes saw them finish 14th and 12th. They moved down to third in the rankings, but are still just a point off the Spanish 470 crew.

Vadlau said: “It was quite challenging with a super tricky wind. We tried to stay cool as much as we could and just made the best out of it and luckily it worked well. We are happy we had a good day.”

Maehr said: “We look at it day by day, because we know the bay of Marseille well. We’ve trained a lot here and I think it’s so different day after day. It’s so wonderful to sail here, but it’s also very tough to get the good side well.”

Brugman said: “Consistency was our main strategy for this event, at least for the first few days, so we’ve stuck to the plan and we’re very happy with that.

“Today it was really easy to commit big errors and we’re really happy we were able to stay consistent on such a tricky day. We focused on starts, speed and avoiding big risks. We’ll re-evaluate in the next couple of days, but we’re really happy with how we’re sailing.”

Okada said: “It was a difficult day today. We made a mistake choosing the left side. The first and second day were really good for us, but today was really bad for us. Hopefully we can do better, we are confident.”

Italy’s Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti upheld their complete dominance of the Mixed Multihull with three consecutive wins in lighter wind. The pair are going from strength to strength and will take some beating over the next few days of racing.

New Zealand’s Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson climbed up the standings with two second place finishes on an excellent day of racing for the duo.

Argentina’s Mateo Majdalani and Eugenia Bosco completed the top three with two consecutive sixth place finishes.

How it works:

Medals for the Mixed Dinghy (470) will be decided by the cumulative results of the 19-strong fleet over 10 races. The boat with the lowest total will rank first. Athletes will be able to discard their worst finishing position after they’ve completed three races.

At the end of the Opening Series, the top ten boats in the fleet will qualify for the Medal Race, which is worth double points.The score in the Medal Race cannot be discarded. The crew with the smallest overall points total will win gold.

Medals for the Mixed Multihull (Nacra 17) be decided by the cumulative results of the 19-strong fleet over 12 races. The boat with the lowest total will rank first. Athletes will be able to discard their worst finishing position after they’ve completed three races.

At the end of the Opening Series, the top ten boats in the fleet will qualify for the Medal Race, which is worth double points. The score in the Medal Race cannot be discarded. The crew with the smallest overall points total will win gold.