Good news went back for China from the Qingdao International Regatta as in both men's and women's RS:X the host country had nice positions.

Also, Saturday was a good day for the regatta as it started with a wind of 6 knots, which set sailing all the eleven events.

In the RS:X Men, Zhou Yuanguo of China moved up to pace the race, finishing first in both race 3 and race 4, and came in the first place overall.

On the women's part, China's Yin Jian, silver medalist in Athens, finished third overall. Yin performed quite stably since the competition started last Thursday. She finished second in race 3 and fourth in race 4.

Iker Martinze and Zabier Fernadez from Spain, the defending Olympic sailing champion in 49er, kept their advantage in Saturday's races.?

The Spaniards did not perform well in race 3 as they finished 15th, but they were back in form to finish first in race 5 and eighth in race 6. They still ranked first overall.

"The 1st race was not so good, we came in 15th," said Martinze. "We made a mistake on the first wind (went up the wrong side). It was tough to get up speed."

"In the second race we caught some great upwind. It was great to come back on top after placing 15th in the 1st race.??

"In the third race, we didn't take much risk at the start. A lot of boats were faster than us.

"There was good upwind. At the windward mark we were probably 13th or 14th, and at the leeward mark we caught up to eighth," she said. "It was too hard to catch up anymore so we finished at eighth.

"Overall, we're happy with our performance today."

Britain also did a good job on Saturday. Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson still ranked atop after four races in Yngling; Ben Ainslie kept his advantage in Finn that he finished first overall.

The top one sailor in Laser was also British. Paul Goodison performed quite well to finish first in race 3 and 10th in race 4.

Flavio Marzzzi and Christoph Christen from Switzerland beat world champions Xavier Rohart and Pascal Rambeau from France to finish first overall in Star. The French came into the second.

Ai Kondo and Naoko Kamata from Japan finished first after five races in 470 Women. As for 470 Men, Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page from Australia came in the first after four races.

In Laser Radial, Jo Alen from New Zealand came in first after four races. Roan Hagara and Hans Peter Steinacher from Austria, the Olympic gold medalist in Athens and Sydney, ranked first after three races in Tornado.
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(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2007)