Boardsailing: German gun has Kendall in sights

By SUZANNE MCFADDEN

Amelie Lux is a waif of a girl who shoots a gun in the German army.

The pint-sized Lux may look like Bambi, but she is no timid, awkward fawn.

She has no problems standing in the way of the three big guns of Olympic boardsailing.

After two days on Sydney Harbour, the German soldier is at the front of the fleet - her worst result so far a second.

In her board wake are former Olympic gold medallist Barbara Kendall, Italy's 1996 bronze medallist Alessandra Sensini and defending champion Lai Shan Lee, of Hong Kong.

The boardsailors managed to squeeze just one race out of Monday's thin breeze.

Lux scored her second win from three, with Kendall coming home second ahead of Sensini. That pair are now equal second.

So far the three sailors have filled the top three spots in every race.

The question around Rushcutters Bay, home of Olympic sailing, is who is Amelie Lux?

First of all she is tiny - she weighs only 52kg and is a mere 161cm small.

The reason she is winning so far, she says, is because she is so little.

"I'm really lucky that the wind has been so light," she said yesterday. "Normally I'm not as fast as the other girls.

"So we will have to see what happens to me over the next few days if the wind gets stronger."

Lux struggles to keep her weight up - a day sailing can mean a whole kilo lost.

Some days her coach Diedrick Bakker stops her from going out training. He says he has to sit her down and force feed her for six hours to make up the lost weight.

The 24-year-old Lux is not a new face on the water.

She twice won the world youth boardsailing title in the mid'90s, and was ninth at the world champs this year.

Her sailing prowess earned her a job as a sports soldier in the German Army.

"For two months they teach you how to shoot a gun and pitch a tent, and then you can go sailing every day," Lux says.

Kendall is totally comfortable with where she is sitting in the competition - three points behind Lux with just a quarter of the regatta gone.

Coach Grant Beck described her effort on Monday as incredible, as she sailed around a large windshift and found the fast lane.

Sensini was her major threat, coming from ninth to a fast-finishing fourth.

New Zealand's other real gold medal hope on the harbour, Aaron McIntosh, was a more relaxed man after notching up a fourth in the one race for the men's board fleet on Monday.

After the distress of a disqualification on day one, the three-time world champ fought back.

He sailed a clever tactical race dodging wind holes pocking the course.

McIntosh recovered from ninth at the first mark, to fourth at the line - only a second behind Fiji's sole sailor, Tony Philp.

McIntosh is now 14th - a position which will only get better after he discards his disqualification.

Austrian Christoph Sieber is the only man in the fleet to have consistently good results - two wins and a second putting him well in the lead.

But regatta favourite Lars Kleppich had another bad day, and is now floundering in 17th.