4:55 AM Sat 30 Jan 2010 GMT
The Australian Sailing Team's 470 men's crew of Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page had a great penultimate day of the Rolex Miami OCR, claiming a second and third placing to jump up the leader board from their overnight position of seventh to second heading into Saturday's medal race.
'We had a nice day out there today and raced exactly how we wanted to race,' said Page. 'We didn't have sensational starts, both races were good starts but we played the percentages and took all of our chances when they presented themselves.'
France's Nicholas Charbonnier and Baptiste Meyer Dieu won both of the day's races to squeeze into the medal race in tenth position.
'In the first race today we were leading the way but dictated slightly by the fleet, allowing Charbonnier to head a different way and take the victory,' said Page. 'Then in the second race we had to work our way through the fleet, so to finish third in that one was very satisfying.'
In what is sure to be an incredibly tight finish to the second round of the ISAF Sailing World Cup the pair are just one point behind the leading crew of Gideon Kliger and Eran Sela of Israel and tied on points with Anton Dahlberg and Sebastian Astling of Sweden.
'There's nothing between the top crews here, tomorrow is all going to be about who beats who,' said Page.
'It's anybody's regatta at this stage and we're really happy that we could get into a position to be in the running after being in seventh overnight.'
'Today we managed to do all the little things right, we took our opportunities and had good speed under pressure, to be able to perform well in such a high quality fleet was great,' he said.
With the top six crews separated by just 10 points the medal race is set to be a thriller.
Though not everything went the Australian's way on Friday with coach Victor Kovalenko struck down with illness after spending the day on the water.
'Victor wasn't feeling too well before we went out but in true Victor style spent the day on the coach boat working away,' said Page. 'After racing we got him checked out at the club and then headed straight to the hospital, we're sitting here still in our sailing gear.'
'Victor's had a series of scans tonight and the blood clot has cleared so he'll be right to fly home, and I'm sure we won't be able to keep him off the water for tomorrow's medal race,' he said.
by Craig Heydon
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