Burton Secures Sailing Medal

Tom Burton has all but guaranteed himself a medal in the Laser sailing class. He will know tomorrow what colour it is.

The NSWIS sailor has been the big mover up the leaderboard over the past two days and he stormed into second spot at the end of the 10-race series with some inspiring results.

He finished 11^th in the day’s opening race (race 9) but rebounded to grab fourth in race 10 to sit in second place overall.

On adjusted net points he is on 67, 10 behind leader Tonci Stipanovic of Croatia (57) and 10 ahead of New Zealand’s Sam Meech (77) and 19 clear of fourth placed Jean Baptiste Bernaz of France (86).

In the medal race, points are doubled, setting up an intriguing finale to a brilliant campaign from Burton.

“I made some big mistakes on the first day,” Burton told the AOC website.

“Each day has been a different story. I thought I had some bad days and after the third day I thought I was nearly out of it, so it’s good to have kept fighting and come out near the front.”

Things didn’t quite go to plan for NSWIS duo Lisa Darmanin and Jason Waterhouse in the Mixed Nacra 17 class, but they have maintained their position at the top of the leaderboard after nine races.

They had a sizeable chunk taken off their lead though, starting the day by finishing 15^th in race 7 and following that with 11^th in back-to-back races.

That was compounded by good results from their closest competitors Argentina and a surging New Zealand.

The Sydney cousins lead the competition by three points on net results with three races remaining in the series before the medal event.

“It was a strange day out there,” Waterhouse told the AOC website.

“We really didn’t manage the environment as well as we should have. I didn’t anticipate that it was going to be that shifty.”

“We’re surprised that we’re still in the lead but that’s exactly where we want to be and we’re going to continue to work towards that.”

It was a better day for NSWIS London 2012 gold medallists Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen in the 49er class.

They made up ground on the fleet to sit in equal sixth at the halfway stage of the competition.