October 11, 2002
1 minute reading time
Racing Tight Going into the Final Day
The weather was kind to the 130 competitors on day five of the Star Europeans, allowing the championship to get underway again.
The weather was kind to the 130 competitors on day five of the Star Europeans, allowing the championship to get underway again.
The competitiveness of this two-man Olympic keelboat class is evident; out of four races there has been a different race winner ever time. The honour today went to Serge Kats/Jean Pierre Martens (NED), who took the race win from Hans Spitzauer/Andreas Hanakamp (AUT), to move themselves up to fourth place overall.
Alexander Hagen/Olivier Vitzthum (GER) were third, and 2002 World Champions Iain Percy and Steve Mitchell (GBR) finished just behind. This result sees them move up into sixteenth place overall but counting a DNF from the first race, a medal for the pair looks unlikely.
Adding a sixth place to his impressive score-line, American sailor and triple Olympic medallist Mark Reynolds, sailing with Austin Sperry, have scored nothing worse than a ninth place throughout the championships and look set to take home a medal. Fredrik Loof/Andres Ekstrom (SWE) are just one point behind Reynolds and will be fighting hard on the remaining day to snatch the gold medal from him.
Top 10 Results (After 4 Races)
| Position | Helm | Crew | Sail No | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | Total |
| 1 | Mark Reynolds | Austin Sperry | USA | 9 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 21 |
| 2 | Fredrik Loof | Anders Ekstrom | SWE | 1 | 3 | 13 | 5 | 22 |
| 3 | Niklas Holm | Martin Leifelt | DEN | 2 | 12 | 8 | 11 | 33 |
| 4 | Marc Pickel | Tony Kolb | GER | 17 | 9 | 5 | APA10,33 | 41,33 |
| 5 | Serge Kats | Jean Pierre Martens | NED | 4 | 21 | 19 | 1 | 45 |
| 6 | Roberto Bermudez | Manrique Dominus | ESP | 14 | 14 | 11 | 7 | 46 |
| 7 | Max Treacy | Anthony Shanks | IRL | 7 | 28 | 1 | 20 | 56 |
| 8 | Xavier Rohart | Yannick Adde | FRA | 15 | 5 | 9 | 27 | 56 |
| 9 | Gonzalo Araujo | Marcos Iglesias | ESP | 13 | 18 | 15 | 12 | 58 |
| 10 | Alexander Hagen | Olivier Vitzthum | GER | 10 | 22 | 24 | 3 | 59 |