Sailing: Three Scots in top ten medal races

Scots David Kohler, Anna Burnet and Flora Stewart have all secured places in today’s top ten medal races in the 470 European Championships at Largs, although neither of their boats has achieved sufficient points in the 12-race qualifying to be in with the chance of medalling.

Kohler, from Edinburgh, and his English helm Philip Sparks had their worst result of the week, misjudging the wind from the start and never recovering to finish 24th.

Race two was better, although their fifth spot on the table puts them a significant eight points adrift of the fourth placed Greeks, Panagiotis Kampouridis and Efstathios Papadopoulos.

Kohler said: “It is disappointing we won’t be in with a shout of the medals. But our aim at the start of the week was to get into the medal race and we have never done better than 14th at a European Championships, so we would be happy with fifth.”

Title holders, Croatia’s Sime Fantela and Igor Marenic, have built such a significant lead they will take the gold today irrespective of the medal race outcome.

In the women’s event Burnett from Helensburgh and Edinburgh’s Flora Stewart will contest their first-ever women’s medal race in sixth position overall after finishing 11th and ninth yesterday. Britain’s Sophie Ainsworth and Sophie Weguelin are favourites for the final.