Cecilia Wollmann added to her growing reputation in the junior sailing world yesterday with a pair of fourth-place finishes that strengthened her grip on a top-ten finish at the Youth Olympics in Nanjing, China.

The 16-year-old, who won in the same Byte CII at the North American Championships in Newport, Rhode Island, in February, slipped back into the middle of the field in her third race of the day by placing thirteenth, but she has put together such a body of work after an early disqualification that even a place in the top five is not out of the question.

Without her disqualification in the second race on Monday, one of only two handed out in the regatta — the other served on the lowly ranked Indonesian sailor, Kirana Wardojo, in the same race — Wollmann would be third going into the final four races, including the all-important medal race on Saturday.

Instead, she sits in ninth place on 59 points with not a lot of margin for error if she wishes to continue her progression through the 30-strong women’s field.

The gold medal looks like being fought out between Odil van Aanholt, of the Netherlands, and Samantha Yom, of Singapore, the pair on 21 and 25 points respectively with only one counting finish outside the top ten between them.

Carolina Albano, of Italy, occupies third place at present on 44 points, but Wollmann, after a difficult first day in which her only legal finish of fourteenth still serves as her discard, has been as consistent as any in the regatta and should retain outside hope of a podium finish.

Bermuda’s track and field athletics also impressed in their qualifiers yesterday.

High jumper Jah-Nhai Perinchief soared to a personal best jump of 2.10 metres, tying with four other athletes for the highest leap of the day. This places him in group A and in good position for the finals on Saturday.

The 16-year-old’s previous personal best was a 2.08 metre leap that won him second place at this summer’s Holland National Championships.

Kyrah Scraders also made her mark with a gutsy performance in the women’s 800, finishing third in her heat with a time of 2min 11.27sec and qualifying for the finals on Saturday in group B.

“No one in her heat was willing to push the pace and Kyrah did what she had to do and led for over 600 metres or so,” Gina Evans, the team manager, said.

“We are very proud of fearless Kyrah, she is the type of athlete that always gives a solid 100 per cent effort. We are all looking forward to a stellar performance from Kyrah in the B final on Saturday.”

Sprinter Kionje Somner will compete in the qualifiers for the 200 tomorrow.