KEY POINTS:
Jo Aleh continued her stirring comeback with another second in the fifth race of the Laser Radial class at the Olympic regatta - and now leads overall halfway through the 10-race series to find the medal race contestants.
Aleh has strung together three second-place finishes in a row - a fine performance in the testing, fickle conditions at Qingdao - and has not finished any further back than fourth since her 22nd in the first race.
Yesterday she bowed only to Lithuania's Gintare Volungevicute and world No 1 Anna Tunnicliffe (US) came sixth, slipping behind Aleh and the Lithuanian after the fifth race.
With Qingdao's light airs playing tricks again, the boardsailors were delayed further, meaning no change in the fortunes of Tom Ashley or Barbara Kendall - along with Aleh, the best of the Kiwi medal chances.
Teenage 470 sailors Carl Evans and Peter Burling came 12th in their first race yesterday and delighted the yachting camp by winning the ninth race on Burling's 18th birthday - boosting them to 11th place overall (the top 10 slug it out for the medals with points accrued carried through to a double-points medal race).
In the Star class, Hamish Pepper and Carl Williams came ninth in their second race and are sixth overall - but it is early days yet.
Meanwhile, Andrew Murdoch continued to have a terrible time of it after his bright start to the regatta - a 24th in his fifth race yesterday means he is now lying 13th overall.
All classes were due to have more races last night but the winds mean there could be more delays and more rescheduling - surely taking the competition organisers closer to shortening the races from 10, simply to keep up with the clock.
The Finn medal race - which was sailed after the series was shortened from 10 races to eight - saw former Team New Zealand America's Cup reserve skipper Ben Ainslie set to win Britain an entirely expected gold medal when he rounded the second mark in the lead yesterday.
Ainslie was thwarted, however, when the wind died and the race was abandoned, to be run later.
