A tense four-way battle looms today as Ben Ainslie's girlfriend goes for a matching Gold medal
Now that Ben Ainslie has another Gold medal safely stashed away
in his trophy cabinet it is the turn of girlfriend Marit Bouwmeester to see if she can
get one to match.
Bouwmeester, 24, sails for the Netherlands and is favourite to
win the Laser Radial class. She is lying in joint 1st place ahead of today’s
medal race. Doesn’t this all feel like a fair wind to her prospects?
The trouble is this fleet has the closest top group of the
sailing Olympics so far: four sailors are separated by one point with all those
behind so far adrift on points that they are out of medal contention.
Chinese
sailor Lijla Xu also goes into this race with 33 points and Evi Van Acker of
Belgium and Annalise Murphy of Ireland are one step behind with 34 points.
It’s a race with only four possible winners but another six
sailors in the medal race fleet making up the numbers and likely to mess with your wind, your tactics and your
head.
I wonder how Marit Bouwmeester felt yesterday when she heard Ainslie
say that he the medal course, which is fringed by high land, is one of the
hardest he’s ever sailed and he hopes he’ll never have to do it again?
Look at it one way and hers is a good place to be: three of the
four top Laser Radial sailors will get a medal of some kind. Viewed from the
other angle and it means one who has the prize equally in reach is bound to be
sailing back empty-handed and in depair.
Yes, another day of tactical nerves of steel and high drama on
the Nothe coming up.