470 men move into medal contention

The British pair, who posted two strong performances on Tuesday with a first and fourth after a poor first day on Monday, were fifth at the penultimate mark but slipped to ninth at the finish line in race five.

However, it was still good enough for them to discard their 19th place in the opening race as they moved up from fifth to third in the overall standings with 19 points.

Rogers and Glanfield are six points behind leaders Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page of Australia, who finished third in race five, and three adrift of second placed France, who were sixth.

The Irish crew of Ger Owens and Philip Lawton claimed victory in the race by six seconds from Italy to move up from 13th to ninth.

The women's 470 team of Christina Bassadone and Saskia Clark struggled in the light breezes off Qingdao in their opening race, coming home in 15th place, five and a half minutes behind winners Austria.

They remained in eighth place on 30 points, well adrift of leaders Australia, who had their worst result thus far with a ninth place in race five.

The 49er crew of Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes were looking to bounce back after a disappointing second day of racing on Monday but made the worst possible start in the first race of the day as they crossed the start line too early and were disqualified.

They came back to finish third in race eight, nine seconds behind the winning American boat, but are down in ninth place in the overall standings, well behind leaders Denmark, who were fourth and second in the first two races.

A lack of breeze on a couple of the outlying courses on the Yellow Sea led to long delays in the start of the Laser, Laser Radial, Finn and Yngling races.