The 20-year-old registered a fifth-place finish and two third-place finishes on another difficult day at the Sorrento Sailing Couta Boat Club, where wind shifts were deceptive and the gusts lulled sailors into complacency.

She now sits on a net score of 23 points and has an advantage of four over The Netherlands' Lilian de Geus, who has climbed up the leaderboard again today after a disappointing first race on Tuesday (February 25) when she posted an 18th-place finish.

Since then, the Dutchwoman has not placed outside of the top six and has taken two race wins.

"It was a lot of fun racing today," De Geus said.

"It was quite difficult on the course, quite a lot of gusts and shifts which made it interesting. 

"I hope I can do better than last year, where I came third, but all of the girls are sailing really well here and I hope to battle to the end of this week. 

"We have had a windy week so far, which I like, but I don’t mind some light winds too."

Behind De Geus, it is Poland's Maja Dziarnowska and Great Britain's Emma Wilson who are challenging each other for third place overall, with the former on 40 points and the latter on 42.

France's Charline Picon, the reigning Olympic champion from Rio 2016, recovered from a difficult first two days to post the best scoreline of one, one and six and elevate herself up to seventh.

The men endured an equally difficult day and leader Kiran Badloe of The Netherlands finally blemished his scorecard with an 11th-place finish in the second race of the day.

Either side of that though, the tall Dutchman managed to keep his bid for glory firmly on track with a win in the first race of the day and another in the last race of the day, putting him on 11 points.

Poland’s Paweł Tarnowski had a difficult day, scoring 16, 19 and two, but has just about held onto second place overall with 36 points.

Israels Shahar Zubari has moved up to third with 37 points, having scored a two, one and 12 for the day.

Double Olympic champion Dorian van Rijsselberghe may have let the title slip though his fingers today.

The Dutchman had a poor first race, registering a 25th-place finish before bouncing back to score a third and fifth in the remaining two races to leave himself sitting in fourth on 38 points.

Action in Sorrento is due to continue tomorrow.

It will be the last chance for sailors to make the all-important medal race on Saturday (February 29).