KEY POINTS:
Four down, four to go. Yachting New Zealand yesterday put forward nominations for Beijing Olympic Games selection next year in half the classes in which they have qualified, with the ageless Barbara Kendall a certainty for her fifth Games.
Kendall won the silver medal in the RS:X boardsailing event at the world championships in Cascais, Portugal, last month and will be chasing her fourth Games medal, after gold, silver and bronze at Barcelona (1992), Atlanta (1996) and Sydney (2000) respectively.
The other three early nominations are Andrew Murdoch in the Laser, Jo Aleh in the Laser Radial and Finn sailor Dan Slater.
Murdoch also grabbed silver in Portugal; Aleh was eighth and Slater was 16th in a division where the top 19 secured spots in Beijing for their country.
New Zealand have bagged spots in four other classes through results in Portugal, however the YNZ selectors are still working their way through nominations.
The four still to be finalised are the men's boardsailing, where both Tom Ashley (15th) and Jon Paul Tobin (21st) finished inside the top 25 requirement, possibly meaning some hard thinking for the selectors; the Yngling, where Sharon Ferris and her crew were an impressive sixth in Cascais; the Star, in which Hamish Pepper and Carl Williams, world champions last year, were fourth, and have a powerful argument; and the women's 470, in which Melinda Henshaw and Olivia Powrie finished 15th, but 13th best country, inside the requirement for consideration.
The three Olympic classes New Zealand have not qualified in are the Tornado, men's 470 and the 49ers.
