Australians lead Olympic Sailing
Having come into the Beijing Olympic sailing regatta on top of the world ranking, overall the Australian camp has already shown they learnt the hard lessons from Athens, where they went home without any medals. 
'2008 Olympic Regatta - Day 5 - 470, Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page'
Sail-World.com/ AUS © Click Here to view large photo
The news of first few days of the Qingdao regatta was mainly British with Ben Ainslie quick to re-assert his dominance of the Finn class and then the three blondes Ayton, Webb and Wilson topping the Yngling fleet. It seemed that the investment of British lottery proceeds might prove particularly fruitful; with an overall medal count win of likely, however since then British hopes have been dashed in numbers of classes.
Now it's the turn of the Australian team. Triple World Champions Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page lead the 470 Mens with a drop of a seventh, the Australian 470 women Rechichi and Parkinson share the points lead in the 470 Womens class.
The Australian results continue to look promising with the young guns Outteridge and Austin still leading the 49er class. (just). Jessica Crisp is currently second in the RS:X, Sarah Blanck is fourth in the Laser Radials and Tornado favourites Bundock and Ashby are yet to begin their regatta. 
Every well placed sailor is quick to point out that its early days in the regatta and commentators say the fat lady has not even booked the taxi to the opera house, but the patterns are starting to form on the results sheets.
Here is the full result set for the 2008 Olympic regatta after Day 5.
by Rob Kothe 
Click on thumbnails to enlarge and find more photos:
Balaclava, VIC
