In the last 2 races of the qualifier series the pressure at the top may just be starting to tell on the leaders of the Laser 4.7 World Championship. Overnight leader Justin Onvlee from South Africa could only manage a sixth place finish in his first race of the day whilst his main challenger Dani Stanisic from Croatia scored a fourth. These two points were crucial to Stanisic as it gave him the overall lead for the first time in the series.
Onvlee offered no excuses. He said "I just did not get it together". As both went out and won their next race Stanisic keeps his one point lead going into the final 3 races where for the first time the top sailors will race against each other. Onvlee's first in his last race was achieved in the last 500 metres to finish. Having rounded the last mark in second the 10 knot wind started to die at the leeward end of the course. Onvlee went looking for wind by tacking into the normally unfavoured middle of the lake and found a little more pressure to take the lead. Behind him the lower places in his fleet were not so lucky as the fleet parked for a short while until the southerly Ora wind re-established itself.
As a precaution the two remaining fleets still racing were shortened at the end of the second downwind leg in a light 7 knot wind.
With a possible 3 more races in the gold fleet and all but Stanisic having already scored a drop race the championship is still wide open. In Stanisic's favour he can still count his worst result, an 8th. For the chasing pack, including Onvlee, a bad result in one of the three remaining races will leave them hoping for 10 races, when a second discard comes into effect.
Overall results after 8 races with one discard:
1 SLO STANISIC Dany 12,0
2 RSA ONVLEE Justin 13,0
3 FRA FREI Mathieu 19,0
4 FIN COLLURA Pierre Angelo 27,0
5 GBR HOLLOWAY Max 28,0"
6 CRO KALEBIC Ivo 28,0"
7 ITA DI IASIO Anita 29,0
8 IRL DOLAN Alexander 32,0
9 ITA STRAZZERA Enrico 35,0
10 GBR DE BOLTZ Richard 36,0
11 RUS LISOVENKO Igor 39,0
12 ITA SALVADORI Luca 45,0
13 SLO DOMIJAN Luka 47,0
14 GBR GODWIN Robert 47,0
15 UKR ISAKOV Oleksandr 49,0