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British duo Elliot Willis and Nic Asher jumped to the top of the standings in the men's 470 class after battling to second and third place finishes at the Skandia Sail for Gold regatta.

With the 470 field today splitting into gold and silver fleets - Willis and Asher, 470 world champions in 2006 and 2008 leapfrogged Australian duo Malcolm Page and Mathew Belcher to move into the gold medal position.

The penultimate day on Friday and the medal race on Saturday are now certain to be tense affairs, with the Australian crew just one point further back than Willis and Asher.

Ahead of Thursday's racing the Australian crew had won three of the four races in the 470 class but a disastrous day saw Page and Belcher finish a lowly seventh and tenth.

"It's been a weird day, the wind dropped off quite a bit," said Asher, who has now finished outside the top three all week. "The first race was pretty windy and not that shifty, but it got pretty shifty as it heated up.

"People's results were all over the place, which is good for us. There were some pretty big discards today. We sailed pretty conservatively today; we weren't on too many edges."

The British duo has also still to use their discard; meaning Asher and Willis are in a strong position ahead of Saturday's medal race.

"One more day to go and we still haven't used our discard yet so that's pretty useful," added Willis.

"Hopefully if we put a good race in tomorrow we can create a nice point's margin going into the medal race, which will put us in a good position. It's looking good at the moment."

In the Finn class Ed Wright is in second spot after a first and seventh finish on Thursday, while Giles Scott is back in fifth.

Britain's Nick Thompson was off the pace in the laser class as he trailed home fourth and 26th and now faces a battle with Tom Slingsby during the final two days of racing, while Pippa Wilson and Saskia Clark are down in sixth in the women's 470 class.

More than the Games / Eurosport