5 Aug 2012

Three NZ sailing entries through to medal races

10:03 am on 5 August 2012

Three of New Zealand's Olympic sailing entries have qualified for their medal races.

Andrew Murdoch (men's Laser), Dan Slater (Finn) and Hamish Pepper and Jim Turner (Star class) have advanced to the medal races, which are worth double points.

Murdoch got there with two third-place finishes in the final two races of the opening series, which lifted him into fifth overall.

The top 10 teams compete in the medal race on Tuesday.

Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie are leading the fleet of the women's 470 after four races.

They finished second in race three and fifth in race four on Saturday.

Paul Snow-Hansen and Jason Saunders are third in the men's 470 after finishing 16th in race five and third in race six. There are still four races in their event before the medal race.

In the men's RS:X, J P Tobin came 12th in race seven and sixth in race eight to be fifth overall with two races to go before the medal race.

Sara Winther was disqualified in race nine of the women's Laser Radial match racing and came ninth in race 10. Her overall placing of 20th place was not good enough to get her through to the medal race.