Leroy bows out as Macgregor fights back

French skipper Claire Leroy’s winning streak came to a sudden and costly end as she bowed out of the women’s match racing regatta at the ISAF World Sailing Championships yesterday.

Leroy was within one win of a berth in the gold medal race, but couldn’t quell a spirited fightback by Great Britain’s Lucy Macgregor, the defending world champion.

Leroy, with crew Marie Riou and Elodie Bertrand, were the top seeds for the semi-finals and had won nine races straight at the regatta when they led Macgregor 2-0, but the Brit rallied to win the best-of-five series 3-2.

Their previous defeat was also against Macgregor, in the final race of the round robin stage last Friday.

Leroy will race for the bronze today.

Macgregor will face world number one Anna Tunnicliffe, after the American beat Russian Ekaterina Skudina 3-1 in their semi.

In the men’s windsurfing, the Netherlands’ Dorian van Rijsselberghe leads Poland’s Piotr Myszka by six points, with Israel’s Nimrod Mashich in third. Van Rijsselberghe won the day’s opening race by 23 seconds, and then stayed out of trouble to finish fourth and third in the subsequent heats.

With just two races left before Sunday’s double-points medal race, the Dutch sailor, ranked 10th in the world, is poised to claim his first world championship gold medal.

There was only one gold fleet race in the men’s 49er skiffs, with Danish brothers Emil and Simon Toft Nielsen surging to second on the table with their win.

However, British duo John Pink and Rick Peacock still lead by six points, after finishing second.