Britain nearing Olympic sailing medals

WEYMOUTH, England, Aug. 2 (UPI) -- Two-time defending champion Ben Ainslie of Britain moved closer to the lead Thursday with only two preliminary races left in the Olympic Finn class regatta.

Ainsley, who fell behind early in the Olympics when Denmark's Jonas Hoegh-Christensen captured the first two races, moved within three points of the Danish leader Thursday by winning one race and finishing third in the other.

Hoegh-Christensen still has a lead of 18 points to 21 for Ainslie, but the Dane settled for eighth and fourth-place finishes on Thursday.

After the final two preliminary races are held, there will be a single medal race conducted in which points count double. The worst finish among the preliminary races can be thrown out, but the points received in the medal race must count to the final total.

In another busy day of Olympic sailing off the southern coast of England, Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell of Britain took the lead after the first two races in the men's 470 class (two-person dinghy). They won one of the races and finished second in the other.

The 49er class (skiff) sailed its seventh and eighth races out of a total of 15 preliminary competitions and the British duo of Stephen Morrison and Ben Rhodes won both of them. That moved them into second place, 11 points behind Australians Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen.

After eight of the 10 prelim races in the Star class (keelboat), Ian Percy and Andrew Simpson of Britain had a nine-point advantage over Brazilians Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada.

The women's windsurfing competition was being led after six races by Marina Alabau of Spain. She was five points in front of Poland's Carolina Borges-Mendenblatt.