Kiwi Josh Junior will race for gold on Thursday night (NZ time) at the sailing world championships, after having his Finn medal quest literally turned on their head.
On the final day of fleet racing at Aarhus, Denmark, Junior, 28, sat sixth late in the final race, but capsized as a massive storm hit the bay and wound up 15th.
Seven of the top nine boats met the same fate and one snapped a mast during the squall, which reached 37 knots - almost twice the allowable wind strength for racing.
He considered protesting the result, but eventually decided to let it slide, content to head into the top-10 medal race in third place and within striking distance of Swedish leader Max Slaminen.
"It has completely influenced the outcome of the regatta, but I'm still in the mix to win and that's what I want to do, so tomorrow is about building on that," said Junior. "I have every opportunity to try to do that.
"When the leaders came around the top mark, we just had so much breeze as we bore away that things were breaking and everyone was capsizing. The guys who came around a little bit later had a little less breeze and managed to get downwind, and that turned the whole fleet inside out."
Junior lies only eight points behind Slaminen and is level with second-placed Hungarian Zsombor Berecz, but with the medal race counting double points, anything can still happen. Only four points separate second from sixth.
Junior and Andy Maloney, currently sitting ninth, have already secured a Finn spot for New Zealand at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics - the top eight countries at the world championships qualify.
Others still in medal contention include Sam Meech (fourth in Lasers), Logan Dunning Beck and Oscar Gunn (second in 49ers), and Alex Maloney/Molly Meech (eighth in 49er FX).
Newshub.