Rechichi and Stowell Leave Room for Optimism

A strong final two fleet races has given WAIS athlete’s Elise Rechichi and Belinda Stowell a glimmer of hope of winning a bronze medal in the 470 women’s class.

After a mixed week the pair of Olympic champions put it all on the line on Wednesday, starting the day ninth overall. Rechichi and Stowell were fourth in the opening race before leading race two from start to finish, winning by over two minutes, moving them into sixth heading into the medal race.

“It’s a shame we couldn’t have given up a little bit of that lead today to get back some of those points we lost earlier in the week,” said Rechichi. “It was nice to finish the opening series with a good one and nice to be in the medal race and be in the hunt, albeit a long shot. If the cards fall our way anything is possible.”

Rechichi and Stowell go into the decider 15 points behind the third placed Dutch team and will need things to go their way to claim a medal.

“We’ve learnt that anything is possible on that Nothe course and it would be great to sail the way that we did today,” said Stowell. “We went out there and did the best we could and it was great to come away with the results we did.”

The 470 women’s medal race will be held at 1pm on Friday on the Nothe spectator course.

Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page will be the only Australian crew in action on Thursday as they contest the 470 men’s medal race. Belcher and Page take a four point lead over Great Britain into the decider, needing to finish within one place of them to claim the gold.