The vote received support from 61% of the delegates, but it failed to get the required two-thirds supermajority. The action reversed a preliminary vote last year in favor of the official ban.

But it still leaves the Southern Baptist Convention with its official doctrinal statement saying the office of pastor is limited to men. Even the opponents of the ban said they favored that doctrinal statement but didn’t think it was necessary to reinforce it in the constitution.

Opponents noted that the SBC already can oust churches that assert women can serve as pastors — as it did last year and again Tuesday night.

The vote was perhaps the most highly anticipated of the annual meeting, reflecting years of debate in the United States’ largest Protestant denomination. It is the final day of the SBC’s two-day annual meeting in Indianapolis.

Since 2000, the SBC’s nonbinding statement of faith has declared that only men are qualified for the role of pastor. It’s interpreted differently across the denomination, with some believing it doesn’t apply to associate pastors so long as the senior pastor is male.

The proposed amendment, which received preliminary approval last year, would formally exclude churches that have women in any pastoral positions, from lead pastor to associates, or even affirms them in that role. Supporters believe it is biblically necessary, estimating hundreds of Southern Baptist churches have women in those roles.

The rejected amendment would have said any church deemed in “friendly cooperation” — the official term for SBC affiliation — must be one that “affirms, appoints, or employs only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.”

Opponents argued the convention already has the power to remove churches over this issue, and the amendment will have unintended consequences, including disproportionately affecting Black Southern Baptist congregations, which tend to have women on their pastoral staffs.

But the motion went swiftly to a vote after only brief debate.

Ryan Fullerton, pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, said the measure is “not about preventing women from exercising their gifts” in the church, in roles on church staff such as “children’s ministers.” But he said the Bible is clear that the office of pastor is for men.

He said there is “confusion about gender” in the wider culture and cited what he called “the ravages of the LGBTQIA agenda.”

But Spence Shelton, pastor of Mercy Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, argued that it was unnecessary.

He said there is no doubt that Southern Baptists are “complementarian,” as they describe the view that men and women have equal value but different roles that complement one another.

But he noted that the convention voted to affirm the ouster of a historic Virginia church Tuesday and two other churches last year, including the California megachurch Saddleback, which all have women pastors and affirmed they could hold top pastoral positions.

The reason for ousting them was that they don’t have a faith and practice consistent with the Baptist Faith and Message, the document approved in 2000 that includes the affirmation that the pastoral position is reserved for men.

“Y’all, we have shown the mechanisms we currently have are sufficient to deal with this question,” Shelton said.

Mike Law, pastor of Arlington Baptist Church in Virginia and author of the amendment, cited a report that there are about 1,800 women pastors working in the denomination. He cited Bible verses limiting the pastoral office to men.

“Our culture may see this prohibition as harsh, but our God is all wise, and wrote this word for the flourishing of both men and women,” he said.

“This amendment is not about women in ministry,” Law added. “It’s specifically about women in the pastoral office.” He did not spell out the difference in his brief floor speech.

The denomination can’t tell its independent churches what to do or whom to appoint as a pastor. But they can say which churches are in and which are out.

Last year, Southern Baptists refused to take back Saddleback, one of the convention’s largest congregations, and a small Kentucky church over the issue.

Both churches, which had women in top pastoral positions, appealed their ouster to the 2023 annual meeting and were overwhelmingly rejected by the delegates. A similar scenario played out in Indianapolis on Tuesday, when messengers voted overwhelmingly to kick out First Baptist Church of Alexandria in Virginia, which has a woman in an associate position and also asserted that women can hold the top job.

Supporters of the amendment say it probably won’t result in an immediate, large-scale purge, but opponents expressed concern it would burden SBC volunteers and staffs with numerous investigations of churches.

Delegates also elected a North Carolina pastor and longtime denominational statesman to be the next president of their convention in a contest between six candidates that went into two run-off votes.

Clint Pressley, who is senior pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, will be the next Southern Baptist Convention president after winning 56% of votes in the final run-off race.

The SBC president — one of the most prominent faces of the conservative evangelical network of churches — presides over the annual meeting and appoints members to the denomination’s committees.

Pressley’s nearest opponent, Tennessee pastor, Dan Spencer, received 44 percent of the votes after four other candidates were eliminated in earlier rounds.

Pressley has said he favors a measure being voted on later Wednesday to amend the SBC constitution to ban churches with women pastors.

Pressley earned a master of divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisiana, one of the SBC’s official seminaries. He has led Hickory Grove since 2011 after pastoring churches in Alabama and Mississippi. Pressley was first vice president of the SBC in 2014-15 and served on numerous other denominational boards.

Messengers early Wednesday rejected a proposal to abolish the SBC’s public policy agency, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. The measure reflected the views of some that the the staunchly conservative commission wasn’t conservative enough.

Delegates voted 692-51 at their General Conference — the first such legislative gathering in five years. That overwhelming margin contrasts sharply with the decades of controversy around the issue. Past General Conferences of the United Methodist Church had steadily reinforced the ban and related penalties amid debate and protests, but many of the conservatives who had previously upheld the ban have left the denomination in recent years, and this General Conference has moved in a solidly progressive direction.

Applause broke out in parts of the convention hall Wednesday after the vote. A group of observers from LGBTQ advocacy groups embraced, some in tears. “Thanks be to God,” said one.

The change doesn’t mandate or even explicitly affirm LGBTQ clergy, but it means the church no longer forbids them. It’s possible that the change will mainly apply to U.S. churches, since United Methodist bodies in other countries, such as in Africa, have the right to impose the rules for their own regions. The measure takes effect immediately upon the conclusion of General Conference, scheduled for Friday.

The consensus was so overwhelmingly that it was rolled into a “consent calendar,” a package of normally non-controversial measures.

“It seemed like such a simple vote, but it carried so much weight and power, as 50 years of restricting the Holy Spirit’s call on people’s lives has been lifted,” said Bishop Karen Oliveto, the first openly lesbian bishop in the United Methodist Church.

“People can live fully into their call without fear,” said Oliveto, of the Mountain Sky Episcopal Area, which includes Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. “The church we’ve loved has found a home for us.”

Also approved was a measure that forbids district superintendents — or regional administrators — from penalizing clergy for either performing a same-sex wedding or for refraining from performing one. It also forbids superintendents from forbidding or requiring a church from hosting a same-sex wedding.

That measure further removes scaffolding around the various LGBTQ bans that have been embedded in official church law and policy. On Tuesday, delegates began taking such steps.

Delegates are also expected to vote soon on whether to replace existing, official Social Principles with a new document that no longer calls the “practice of homosexuality … incompatible with Christian teaching” and that now defines marriage as between “two people of faith” rather than between a man and a woman.

The changes are historic in a denomination that has debated LGBTQ issues for more than half a century at its General Conferences, which typically meet every four years. On Tuesday, delegates voted to remove mandatory penalties for conducting same-sex marriages and to remove their denomination’s bans on considering LGBTQ candidates for ministry and on funding for gay-friendly ministries.

About 100 LGBTQ people and allies gathered outside the Charlotte Convention Center after the vote — many with rainbow-colored scarves and umbrellas — to celebrate, pray and sing praise songs accompanied by a drum.

Angie Cox, an observer at the meeting from Ohio, said she has gone before her conference’s board of ordained ministry six times but was “told no just because of the prohibition on LGBTQ clergy.” She said Wednesday’s vote “means I might be able finally to live fully into my calling.”

Tracy Merrick, a delegate from Pittsburgh who has advocated for LGBTQ inclusion at several previous conferences, said with emotion that the vote enables the church to become “the denomination that many of us had envisioned for years.”

At the same time, the vote follows the departure of more than 7,600 American congregations — one-quarter of all UMC congregations in the U.S. The departures took place between 2019 and 2023 — reflecting conservative dismay over the denomination not enforcing its bans on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ ordination. The disaffiliations came under a temporary window enabling congregations to keep their properties under relatively favorable terms.

The conference on Wednesday voted formally to close that window, over the pleas of conservatives who wanted it extended, particularly since the original window only applied to U.S. and not international churches.

“To limit its function to the United States (portion of the) United Methodist Church, that is a form of disfavor for the church in Africa,” said the Rev. Jerry Kulah, a delegate from Liberia.

Dixie Brewster, a delegate from the Great Plains Conference covering Kansas and Nebraska, called for a path for her fellow conservatives to disaffiliate smoothly. “We want a place to go peacefully,” she said. “We will not be disruptive. I do love all, I love my homosexual friends. I just view the Scriptures a different way.”

But others said the disaffiliation process of recent years tore apart congregations and families.

“We cannot continue to center the voices of distrust,” said delegate Lonnie Chafin from Northern Illinois.

Some pointed out there are other ways that congregations and entire conferences can still disaffiliate — noting that the General Conference last week approved the departure of some churches in the former Soviet Union — though others say this is overly burdensome.

This week’s votes could prompt departures of some international churches, particularly in Africa, where more conservative sexual values prevail and where same-sex activity is criminalized in some countries.

Last week, the conference endorsed a regionalization plan that essentially would allow the churches of the United States the same autonomy as other regions of the global church. That change — which still requires local ratification — could create a scenario where LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage are allowed in the United States but not in other regions.

The church’s 1972 General Conference approved a statement in its non-binding Social Principles that homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching” — a phrase omitted in a revision to the Social Principles that is also headed for a conference vote this week.

The now-repealed ban on clergy who are “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” was originally enacted in 1984, when the conference also voted to require “fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness.”

The denomination had until recently been the third largest in the United States, present in almost every county. But its 5.4 million U.S. membership in 2022 is expected to drop once the 2023 departures are factored in.

The denomination also counts 4.6 million members in other countries, mainly in Africa, though earlier estimates have been higher.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

The delegates voted to delete mandatory penalties for conducting same-sex marriages and to remove their denomination’s bans on considering LGBTQ candidates for ministry and on funding for gay-friendly ministries.

The 667-54 vote, coming during their legislative General Conference, removes some of the scaffolding around the United Methodist Church’s longstanding bans on LGBTQ-affirming policies regarding ordination, marriage and funding.

Still to come later this week are votes on the core of the bans on LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage in church law and policy, which may draw more debate. However, the large majority achieved by Tuesday’s votes indicate the tenor of the General Conference. The consensus was so overwhelming that these items were rolled into the legislative “consent calendar,” normally reserved for non-controversial measures.

The actions follow a historic schism in what was long the third-largest denomination in the United States. About one-quarter of U.S. congregations left between 2019 and 2023, mostly conservative churches dismayed that the denomination wasn’t enforcing its longstanding LGBTQ bans. With the absence of many conservative delegates, who had been in the solid majority in previous general conferences and had steadily reinforced such bans over the decades, progressive delegates are moving quickly to reverse such policies.

Such actions could also prompt departures of some international churches, particularly in Africa, where more conservative sexual values prevail and where same-sex activity is criminalized in some countries.

United Methodist Church law still bans the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” into ministry — a decades-old rule that will come up for a vote later this week.

However, on Tuesday, the General Conference voted to remove a related ban — on church officials considering someone for ordination who fits that category. It removed bans on bishops ordaining LGBTQ people as clergy or consecrating them as bishops.

It also removed mandatory penalties — imposed by a 2019 General Conference — on clergy who conduct ceremonies celebrating same-sex weddings or unions.

And it imposed a moratorium on any church judicial processes seeking to discipline any clergy for violating LGBTQ-related rules.

In addition, the General Conference took actions toward being openly LGBTQ-affirming.

It repealed a longstanding ban on any United Methodist entity using funds “to promote the acceptance of homosexuality.” That previous ban also forbade the funding of any effort to “reject or condemn lesbian and gay members and friends” and expressly supported the funding of responses to the anti-HIV epidemic. However, the mixed wording of the old rule has been replaced with a ban on funding any effort to “reject any LGBTQIA+ person or openly discriminate against LGBTQIA+ people.”

“It’s a very liberating day for United Methodists who are actively involved with LGBTQ people,” said the Rev. David Meredith, board chair for the Reconciling Ministries Network, a group that has long advocated for LGBTQ inclusion in the church.

Compared with past, contentious general conferences, this one is “much more upbeat,” added Jan Lawrence, executive director of the network. “Yes, we’re going to have things we disagree on. But the vitriol that we saw in 2019, that is not evident at all.”

Other rule changes called for considering of LGBTQ people along with other demographic categories for appointments in an effort to have diversity on various church boards and entities.

The General Conference is the UMC’s first legislative gathering since 2019, one that features its most progressive slate of delegates in recent memory following the departure of more than 7,600 mostly conservative congregations in the United States because it essentially stopped enforcing its bans on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ ordination.

Those departures came during a window between 2019 and 2023 allowing U.S. congregations to leave with their properties, held in trust for the denomination, under friendlier than normal terms. Conservatives are advocating that such terms be extended for international and U.S. churches that don’t agree with the General Conference’s actions.

“We get it, the United Methodist Church wants to be done with disaffiliation,” said the Rev. Rob Renfroe, president of the conservative advocacy group Good News. “They want to step into this new day. We do not want to keep them from that. But how can disaffiliation be over when it never began for the majority of United Methodists?”

Still to come this week are final votes on whether to remove the bans on LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage, and whether to whether to replace a longstanding document that had called the “practice of homosexuality … incompatible with Christian teaching.”

All of those proposals had overwhelming support in committee votes last week.

The changes would be historic in a denomination that has debated LGBTQ issues for more than half a century at its General Conferences, which typically meet every four years.

Last week, the conference endorsed a regionalization plan that essentially would allow the churches of the United States the same autonomy as other regions of the global church. That change – which still requires local ratification — could create a scenario where LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage are allowed in the United States but not in other regions. Delegates on Tuesday approved a related measure related to regionalization.

The conference last week also approved the departure of a small group of conservative churches in the former Soviet Union.

The denomination had until recently been the third largest in the United States, present in almost every county. But its 5.4 million U.S. membership in 2022 is expected to drop once the 2023 departures are factored in.

The denomination also counts 4.6 million members in other countries, mainly in Africa, though earlier estimates have been higher.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Four law officers serving a warrant for a felon wanted for possessing a firearm were killed and four other officers were wounded in a shootout Monday at a North Carolina home, police said.

Some of the officers who rushed to the Charlotte neighborhood to rescue the first wave of downed officers were wounded as a second shooter began firing on them after they killed the wanted man, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Johnny Jennings said.

“Today we lost some heroes who were out simply trying to keep our community safe,” Jennings said at a news conference.

After a three-hour standoff, the suburban Charlotte home was torn open. Armored vehicles smashed into it, ripping off windows and entire doorways that were left broken. Several armored vehicles were parked across yards, some with tree branches dangling off them.

The U.S. Marshals Task Force was fired on by the wanted suspect as they approached the house and the man was killed in the front yard, Jennings said. His name was not released, but the chief said he was wanted as a felon illegally possessing a weapon.

A second person then fired on officers from inside the home where a high-powered rifle was found, Jennings added.

A woman and a 17-year-old male were found in the home after the standoff. The two are being questioned, Jennings said.

The Marshal’s Service confirmed one of its agents was killed. Two officers from the state Department of Adult Correction also were killed, said North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. The governor was in Charlotte and was speaking to the families of the officers killed and hurt. Their names have not been released.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer Joshua Eyer died a few hours later at the hospital, Jennings said. Eyer was named the officer of the month for the force for April a few weeks ago, the chief said.

“He certainty gave his life and dedicated his life to protecting our citizens,” Jennings said.

One other member of the task force, which is made up of federal agents and other officers from across the region was injured.

Three other Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers who responded to the scene were shot while trying to rescue the wounded officers.

Neighbors said gunfire lasted for several minutes.

WSOC-TV said their helicopter captured an armored vehicle driving through yards and knocking over recycling bins before officers removed a person with blood on their shirt who was then loaded into an ambulance.

After the home was cleared, the helicopter pilot said he couldn’t show the front lawn of the home because the scene was too graphic and disturbing.

“A lot of the questions that need to be answered, we don’t even know what those questions are now,” Jennings said, somberly briefing reporters less than four hours after the shooting. “We have to get a full understanding of why this occurred and also uphold the integrity of the investigation.”

Many roads in the area including Interstate 77 were closed so ambulances could get to hospitals faster. TV footage showed ambulances speeding to hospitals escorted by vehicles both in front and behind with their sirens wailing.

Rissa Reign was cleaning her house when she heard the first shots ring out. There was a pause, then a second set of shots and then a third. She stepped outside.

“When we came outside, there were no cops at all, then cops started rushing, rushing, rushing, rushing in,” she said, adding armored SWAT trucks quickly followed and they “were going over the grass, everything, and they started shooting again.”

The neighborhood, of one– and two-story, brick homes and small trimmed lawns, is very safe, said Alex Rivera, who lives on a street nearby.

“I see, like, 50 police cars zooming in, and then I hear gunshots,” he said on the front porch of the house he shares with his cousin. “I was scared, because there was so much going on.“

Another neighbor, William Cunningham, was moved to tears as he sat on his porch. He said he is a veteran of Operation Desert Storm but never expected such violence in his own neighborhood.

“Bless those officers and bless their families,” he said. “Nobody should get killed over a warrant.”

Four Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools were placed on lockdown around afternoon dismissal, but that was lifted in the late afternoon, the district said.

Police urged people to stay away from the neighborhood and asked residents to remain inside their homes until the all clear was given.

President Joe Biden was briefed on the shooting and spoke with Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles to express his condolences and support for the community.

The last marshal shot and killed in the line of duty was in November 2018. Chase White was shot in Tucson, Arizona, by a man wanted for stalking local law enforcement officers, the agency said.

The Carolinas Regional Fugitive Task Force is headquartered in Charlotte and comprised of 70 federal, state and local agencies. Fugitive task forces are collaborations between agencies to find and arrest suspects in crimes.

In six years, the regional task force has apprehended more than 8,900 fugitives, the U.S. Marshals Service said on its website.

In March 2007, two Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers were killed while responding to a domestic dispute by someone not directly involved in the fight. Demeatrius Antonio Montgomery is serving a life sentence in the killings of officers Jeffrey Shelton and Sean Clark.

___

Contributing to this report were Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; Rebecca Reynolds in Louisville, Kentucky; and Sarah Brumfield in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Sailing, which lives in fear of being dropped from the Games because of the costs and the perception that it is not a spectator friendly sport, had all to play for at Weymouth and Portland.

It did not disappoint.

Spectators witnessed thrills, spills and some disappointments with only Finn sailor Ben Ainslie able to deliver gold for the pre-Games favorites Team GB.

Ainslie’s medal came by the slimmest of margins as the 35-year-old’s gritty determination and guile helped him become the most successful Olympic sailor ever with four golds and a silver in five Games.

His duel with Jonas Hogh-Christensen for the Finn title – held for more than half a century by the Dane’s compatriot Paul Elvstrom – was the most acrimonious of an otherwise largely uncontroversial regatta.

Early concerns about the 10 gold medals being decided in a final race after a series of 10 proved unfounded and the format rewarded spectators with some thrilling racing.

Highlights included the Swedish duo of Fredrik Loof and Max Salminen snatching victory from Britain’s reigning champions Iain Percy and Andrew “Bart” Simpson in the Star class with a superb final sail.

The “Nothe” medal course, close to the shore to provide a perfect spectacle for the paying public, presented one of the trickiest stretches of water even the most experienced Olympic sailors had navigated, with at times flukey winds making for some unexpected results.

The U.S. failed to win a single medal for the first time since 1936 as the squad continued the process of changing the way it trains to replicate the British model.

The spoils were shared among 15 nations with Cyprus celebrating its first Olympic medal in any sport for Pavlos Kontides, who won silver in the Laser single-handed class behind a dominant Tom Slingsby of Australia.

Australia’s three golds and a silver relegated Britain to third with one gold and four silvers behind Spain, whose women take home two golds in the windsurfing and the match racing.

The Netherlands won a gold in men’s windsurfing and the other golds were won by Sweden in the Star, China in the women’s Laser Radial and New Zealand in the women’s two-handed 470.

Several Olympic veterans will not be making the voyage to Rio de Janeiro and some of the boats were raced for the last time in an Olympic championship.

The Star, designed in 1910, and the largest and heaviest of the classes is being decommissioned, unless bronze medalists Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada of Brazil can persuade the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) to grant the keelboat a reprieve.

Another change at the Brazilian Olympic sailing venue of Guanabara Bay in 2016 will be the introduction of kitesurfing, which takes over from windsurfing.

The decision has been challenged by the windsurfing class association, but gold medalist Dorian Van Rijsselberge of the Netherlands and silver medalist Nick Dempsey of Britain have already said they are switching to kiteboarding.

“Mixed doubles” will also feature, closing the gender gap, with the inclusion of the multi-hull two person Nacra 17 class.

While on-board cameras made for some great action TV footage, they were not universally popular among the sailors, with some complaining they got in the way.

Despite this, there have been calls for more technology to help umpires and juries, with some suggesting the use of video for starts and finishes in 2016.

“The sport is advancing probably faster than the umpires and technology involved,” Ian Ainslie, chief coach of the Dutch team, told Reuters.

“You see them having to make a call on a split second incident which could change the nature of the result totally.”

(Editing by Alexander Smith and Nick Mulvenney)

Sailing, which lives in fear of being dropped from the Games because of the costs and the perception that it is not a spectator friendly sport, had all to play for at Weymouth and Portland.

It did not disappoint.

Spectators witnessed thrills, spills and some disappointments with only Finn sailor Ben Ainslie able to deliver gold for the pre-Games favorites Team GB.

Ainslie’s medal came by the slimmest of margins as the 35-year-old’s gritty determination and guile helped him become the most successful Olympic sailor ever with four golds and a silver in five Games.

His duel with Jonas Hogh-Christensen for the Finn title – held for more than half a century by the Dane’s compatriot Paul Elvstrom – was the most acrimonious of an otherwise largely uncontroversial regatta.

Early concerns about the 10 gold medals being decided in a final race after a series of 10 proved unfounded and the format rewarded spectators with some thrilling racing.

Highlights included the Swedish duo of Fredrik Loof and Max Salminen snatching victory from Britain’s reigning champions Iain Percy and Andrew “Bart” Simpson in the Star class with a superb final sail.

The “Nothe” medal course, close to the shore to provide a perfect spectacle for the paying public, presented one of the trickiest stretches of water even the most experienced Olympic sailors had navigated, with at times flukey winds making for some unexpected results.

The U.S. failed to win a single medal for the first time since 1936 as the squad continued the process of changing the way it trains to replicate the British model.

The spoils were shared among 15 nations with Cyprus celebrating its first Olympic medal in any sport for Pavlos Kontides, who won silver in the Laser single-handed class behind a dominant Tom Slingsby of Australia.

Australia’s three golds and a silver relegated Britain to third with one gold and four silvers behind Spain, whose women take home two golds in the windsurfing and the match racing.

The Netherlands won a gold in men’s windsurfing and the other golds were won by Sweden in the Star, China in the women’s Laser Radial and New Zealand in the women’s two-handed 470.

Several Olympic veterans will not be making the voyage to Rio de Janeiro and some of the boats were raced for the last time in an Olympic championship.

The Star, designed in 1910, and the largest and heaviest of the classes is being decommissioned, unless bronze medalists Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada of Brazil can persuade the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) to grant the keelboat a reprieve.

Another change at the Brazilian Olympic sailing venue of Guanabara Bay in 2016 will be the introduction of kitesurfing, which takes over from windsurfing.

The decision has been challenged by the windsurfing class association, but gold medalist Dorian Van Rijsselberge of the Netherlands and silver medalist Nick Dempsey of Britain have already said they are switching to kiteboarding.

“Mixed doubles” will also feature, closing the gender gap, with the inclusion of the multi-hull two person Nacra 17 class.

While on-board cameras made for some great action TV footage, they were not universally popular among the sailors, with some complaining they got in the way.

Despite this, there have been calls for more technology to help umpires and juries, with some suggesting the use of video for starts and finishes in 2016.

“The sport is advancing probably faster than the umpires and technology involved,” Ian Ainslie, chief coach of the Dutch team, told Reuters.

“You see them having to make a call on a split second incident which could change the nature of the result totally.”

(Editing by Alexander Smith and Nick Mulvenney)

Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie sailed serenely round the short Nothe course untroubled by the British team of Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark, who took silver having entered the medal race joint first.

Mills and Clark chose the left side in the first upward beat while the Kiwis struck out on their own course after a slow start and stayed in front to the end.

“We had taken a look at the course before the race and we were pretty happy the right would be fine,” Aleh told reporters. “We needed to strike out on our own”.

Aleh had joked about beating the New Zealand men earlier in the week when their compatriots Peter Burling and Blair Tuke came second to Australia in the men’s 49er skiff.

The Netherlands team of Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout won the bronze after a tight finish with France’s Camille Lecointre and Mathilde Geron.

The French women finished in front of the Dutch in fifth place in the medal race but the veteran Dutch women squeezed home by one point overall.

(Editing by Mark Meadows;

mark.meadows@thomsonreuters.com

; Reuters Messaging:;

mark.meadows.reuters.com@reuters.net

; +44 20 7542 7933; For all the latest; Olympic news go to http://www.reuters.com/london-olympics-2012)

Overall leaders and pre-event favourites Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page, triple world champions, edged a tight contest with their British challengers Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell who were lagging just behind going into the title decider.

Patience and Bithell were runners-up to Belcher and Page in the 2011 world championships.

Racing was called off on Thursday because of a lack of wind but the men’s event got under way at 1200 local time (1100 GMT), with the women’s to follow.

The sailors faced different conditions on Friday with the wind for the first time coming from the southeast but Australia mastered it best to prevail.

The gold-medal race, which counted for double points, was held on the spectator-friendly, shore-based Nothe course.

The short course, which has gained a reputation for its unpredictable wind shifts, provided the added element of swell coming from the southeast due to the change in wind direction.

The race for bronze saw Argentina’s Lucas Calabrese and Juan de la Fuente deny Italy’s Gabrio Zandona and Pietro Zucchetti.

(Editing by Clare Fallon/Mark Meadows)

World champions Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark of Britain and World Cup winners Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie, level after 10 races, were fighting to decide the color of their medals off England’s south coast.

Dutch duo Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout, in third place overall, were racing to avenge their defeat in this year’s world championships by France’s Camille Lecointre and Mathilde Geron who beat them to silver.

Lecointre and Geron were lying fourth, three points behind commercial pilot Westerhof and Berkhout going into Friday’s medal race.

Brazil, Australia and Italy were also in contention for the bronze with the race counting for double points.

The first 10 of the 20-strong field qualified for the medal final raced on the spectator-friendly Nothe course. The 470 conventional racing dinghy is the one boat which is the same for men and women.

Winds freshened on Friday after the women’s lay day on Thursday and shifted to southeasterly, bringing the swell from the ocean.

(Editing by Clare Fallon)

Overall leaders and pre-event favorites Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page, triple world champions, edged a tight contest with their British challengers Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell who were lagging just behind going into the title decider.

Patience and Bithell were runners-up to Belcher and Page in the 2011 world championships.

Racing was called off on Thursday because of a lack of wind but the men’s event got under way at 1200 local time (1100 GMT), with the women’s to follow.

The sailors faced different conditions on Friday with the wind for the first time coming from the southeast but Australia mastered it best to prevail.

The gold-medal race, which counted for double points, was held on the spectator-friendly, shore-based Nothe course.

The short course, which has gained a reputation for its unpredictable wind shifts, provided the added element of swell coming from the southeast due to the change in wind direction.

The race for bronze saw Argentina’s Lucas Calabrese and Juan de la Fuente deny Italy’s Gabrio Zandona and Pietro Zucchetti.

(Editing by Clare Fallon/Mark Meadows)