Rogers and Glanfield pick up silver after close race

Britons Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield have won their second successive 470 men’s silver medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Regatta in Qingdao this morning.

Rogers and Glanfield finished ahead of both the Dutch and French boats in the double points medal race to match the silver they won at Athens in 2004.

It has been a tough regatta for the British, who at times saw their chance of a medal slip away.

Speaking immediately after the race, Nick Rogers said: “We are over the moon. We had a really hard start and to come through is so pleasing. That was the most intense race I’ve ever been involved in, I’m so pleased.

“It is probably more sweet than Athens because we were in with a chance of gold going into that race. Here we had to claw back a medal, this has been a pretty hard Olympics.”

It was Britain’s third sailing medal of the Beijing Olympic Games following up Ben Ainslie and the Yngling trio of Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson’s golds yesterday.

Meanwhile in the women’s 470 medal race, Christina Bassadone and Saskia Clark, who had started the day in ninth overall, finished their first Olympic Games together in sixth, courtesy of a medal race fourth place. The Australian team took gold.

Elsewhere, Paul Goodison has consolidated his place at the top of the fleet, with the Laser medal race scheduled for tomorrow.

In the Laser Radial Penny Clark has taken her overall place to 11th, with one more race in progress.

With three races also scheduled for the windsurfers, Nick Dempsey has so far scored a 5th and a 3rd to lie in silver medal position while a 3rd and a 1st for Bryony Shaw sees her in fourth overall.

Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson in the Star have moved up to fourth overall with another race still scheduled today, while in the Tornado class, Leigh McMillan and Will Howden dropped to 11th overall.