Protest threatened to damage another superb day on the water for British Star sailors
Weymouth Bay is starting to look like the movie set from Jaws with bite-sized chunks of flesh being tossed around the Finn race track….and also it seems among the Stars.
Iain Percy and Bart Simpson added to another bumper day for Team GB’s sailors with a first and second place in their two races but as soon as the results had been tallied and the sails dropped, Percy marched straight off to the protest room, looking the tiniest bit indignant.
What was all that about, we asked Bart who, incidentally seemed thrilled at the stupendous progress which puts them a full nine points ahead of Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada of Brazil.
It was a strange incident with Irish sailors Peter O’ Leary and David Burrows at the top mark and according to Bart, probably a consequence of the pressure they are feeling as a result of the IOC Ethics Commission investigation into two bets O’Leary placed on an opponent at the Beijing 2008 Games.
“We ducked a boat. They were on port and they tacked. We tacked and missed them and went clear then they tacked in our water without a hail for water. …that’s what happened.
“But I think they are a bit frustrated because the Irish press are hounding them quite hard and I feel very sorry for those guys. It is not a good situation to be in and it must be pretty frustrating so they are probably taking it out on everyone else.
“A nine point lead over the Brazilians is OK though we are not sure what will happen with the protest. We are 100% sure we are in the right so we just need to make sure we get through the protest.”
The Irish were disqualified after a protest was formally launched, not by the British pair but by the Danish team.
Apart from that, Bart said, it had been another good day for the Brits.
“Fantastic conditions and good fun sailing. A good day – we feel really lucky to be racing here at the Olympics against all these great sailors.
“We made a bit of a mess of the first run of the second race but the highlight was the last 200m of the first race where we got a nice couple of waves and managed to split between the Brazilians and Poland and got a nice gap so we were very pleased.”