Sailing ISAF World Championships: In the first glimpse of a return to form since Sydney 2000, David Burrows won race six of the ISAF championships in a close-fought battle with British gold medallist Ben Ainslie in Cadiz yesterday afternoon.
"I rounded the top mark seventh but got ahead of a bunch to be in third by the end of the run. By the top of the next beat I'd burnt off the Dutch and German boats to lead," the Malahide sailor said last night.
By the end of the race Burrows had not only protected his lead but extended it to over 300 metres.
By counting his first place and a third yesterday morning Burrows holds onto his fifth overall at the halfway stage of the 11-race competition.
Yesterday's win also reduces the impact of his two 18th places scored in Thursday's races with only the narrowest points spread separating the top five boats.
The result lays down a psychological marker to the other Irish Olympic contenders, including the National Yacht Club's Aaron O'Grady in 38th overall and Baltimore's Youen Jacob in 64th.
Elsewhere on the bay of Cadiz, 15-16 knot winds dropped during yesterday's racing and, in particular, the failing winds turned the second race on the Star keelboat course inside out.
Mark Mansfield and Killian Collins were lying 12th when the wind died and when it returned the Royal Cork pair found themselves in 29th place. They finished 10th yesterday morning.
Likewise Dun Laoghaire's Max Treacy and Anthony Shanks counted one good and one bad result (9, 22) yesterday.
Overall, Treacy and Shanks lie seventh and Mansfield and Collins eighth.
Mansfield is hoping the afternoon race will be thrown out because a naval ship sailed through the course causing a dozen angry competitors to have to reach along the entire side of the ship to escape its wind shadow.
In something of a snakes and ladders results sheet, and with three races still to go, Ireland lie third which would qualify the nation for next year's Olympics but some favourites are now unlikely to go through.
Australia's Colin Beashel and Canada's Ross McDonald, silver and bronze medallists from Atlanta 1996 respectively, will now be forced to try and qualify at next year's worlds just eight weeks before the Olympic games.
Ireland's 49er pairing, Tom Fitzpatrick and Frazer Brown, lie 22nd overall after scoring ninth, 12th and fourth.
In the Laser class, after four races sailed, Rory Fitzpatrick is 91st and the top Irish contender.
