Odile van Aanholt and Annette Duetz took back control in the Women’s Skiff with a return to form in Marseille.

The Dutch duo dropped a little in the second day of racing, but recovered well in their third outing on the water with third and second finishes, lifting them back to the top of the standings.

Sarah Steyaert and Charline Picon of France saw a slight dip in performance, as they were unable to clock a finish in the top ten, but they still only trail the leading crew by five points.

Sweden’s Vilma Bobeck and Rebecca Netzler moved up to third overall following a brilliant session, placing second and first in the opening two races of the day.

Van Aanholt said: “We made a bit of a bad judgement call in the first race and that is a shame. We were upset about that, but we’re also very happy that we managed to do two very good races after that.

“We raced the race that we wanted to in the end. We feel like we’re in it. We’ve been talking a lot about after the Games, so it’s also sort of cool that this is what we’ve been working towards for three years.”

Steyaert said: “Every day we say we have to be alive and every race that’s what we are doing.

“We knew there are some teams that are really heavy and we are not so we are playing with that.”

Netzler said: “It was good, we enjoyed it and I think you can see it when we race.

“It was a hard day, it wasn’t easy. It was shifting a lot and you really had to be quick on your feet, but we managed.”

Bobeck said: “We went into today like all days and just went for it and finally got to show why we’re here so we’re happy.

“We knew we were going to be fast, I think the starts were a bit too conservative so that’s something we’ll work on in the debrief.”

How it works:

Medals for the Women’s Skiff (49erFX) will be decided by the cumulative results of the 20-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.