Sailing: Pepper misses out on late medal bid

10.15am - By DANIEL GILHOOLY

ATHENS - Hamish Pepper's late bid for a medal in the Laser class fell short here today but he held on to seventh place overall to register one of the better results for New Zealand's Olympic sailors.

Pepper came into the 11th and final race with a goal of improving to third and looked on track as racing began in very light winds.

Finding himself in a strong early position, the race was cancelled when conditions stalled. He could only manage 21st in a rescheduled race.

"I kept hold of seventh place which is the most important thing in the end," Pepper told NZPA.

"At one stage in that first race I was probably sitting in bronze medal but it was not meant to be, it didn't quite go the way I'd dreamt."

Sarah Macky's regatta came to a disappointing end today when she placed 17th in the final race to drop two places to eighth overall in a 25-strong field.

It was one place better than at her Olympic debut in Sydney four years ago, and at this year's world championship, but she had set higher goals and did not want to discuss her performance.

World champion Norwegian Siren Sundby won the Europe class comfortably while three-time world champion and former Olympic gold and silver medallist Robert Scheidt of Brazil was too classy for the rest of the Laser field.

The 42-strong Laser field is the biggest at these Games and is arguably the hardest to win because of its status as a glamour class.

Pepper, who finished fourth at the world championships off Turkey in May, set high goals but faced a major battle to fulfil them after a mix of bad luck and wrong decisions saw him finish 24th in the opening race and 26th in the second. His gradual comeback through the regatta hit a snag in the ninth race when another boat infringed and broke his tiller when he was in a good position.

"There's certain little things where you need to have a little bit of luck and from there I was probably on the back foot," Pepper said.

"I'm pretty proud that I got back to the position of going into the last day with a chance.

"But I'm a little bit upset with the result overall because I came here to win a medal and I believed I could have done that."

Pepper was now pondering his future in any form of Olympic sailing, let alone the Laser class, and was weighing up the merits of several approaches from America's Cup challenger syndicates.

The only New Zealanders yet to finish at the regatta are the women's and men's Mistral sailors, who sail twice tomorrow and once more on Wednesday.

Barbara Kendall is an outside medal prospect in sixth place while Tom Ashley is 13th.

Yesterday Dean Barker finished 13th out of 25 in the Finn class while the Yngling crew of Sharon Ferris, Joanna White and Kylie Jameson were seventh out of 16. The Women's 470 crew of Linda Dickson and Shelley Hesson placed 16th out of 20 and the men's 470 of Andrew Brown and Jamie Hunt 26th out of 27.

- NZPA