Tokyo 2020: Day 9 preview with Iain Murray

Australian Sailing Team Leader Iain Murray said, “Yesterday was a great day, we had Matt leading the charge with his Medal Race. Now our focus is entirely on today and the teams who are yet to complete their regattas. We have the Nacras and Jake (Lilley) in the Finn preparing for Medal Races tomorrow, and of course our two 470 teams competing in their final fleet races today.”

Weather

“The current conditions would be described as perfect water-skiing weather. The wind is light and variable at the moment. We have a small front ridge that is offshore from us right now, which we are expecting to arrive at around two or three o’clock (JST). That’s going to bring clouds, potentially some rain and thunder storms. Once that passes, we are expecting some gradient winds behind it which is what we might need to get some races in.

It is going to be quite difficult until that happens, there might be some sitting around and waiting for the ridge to pass over us and hopefully we will get some racing in on the back of that.”

– Iain Murray

Women’s 470 – Nia Jerwood and Monique De Vries (16^th – 1:05pm AEST)

“Nia and Monique will be finishing off their Olympic experience today and they are taking it all in. They now have a clear understanding of what the Olympics are all about, so this has been an invaluable experience for them.

Hopefully they will finish off with some good scores today, but their slotted race time today is in some really tricky conditions. With the expected weather, there is a real chance they will be postponed and moved to tomorrow’s Reserve Day.”

470 sailors Nia Jerwood and Monique De Vries sailing upwind — 470 sailors Nia Jerwood and Monique De Vries are coming 16th overall in their first Olympic Games. Pic- Sailing Energy / World Sailing

– Iain Murray

Men’s 470 – Mat Belcher and Will Ryan (1^st Overall – 3:35 AEST)

“Mat and Will are on an outer course later in the afternoon so there are reasonable prospects that they will get some racing in. They have eight outstanding scores on their card, so effectively they only need one more today.

The plan for today is to just keep on doing what they are doing. We’d like to finish the scorecard off and hopefully take a good margin into the Medal Race.”