Russia and Denmark both had a tremendous day, scoring 71 and 72 Victory Points respectively.It was enough to take Russia back to the top of the table after an interval of several days.

The Danes are now displaying the form that made them World Champions, which is bad news for the rest of the field.

Norway would have been leading, but in their round fourteen encounter with Great Britain one of their pairs was fifteen minutes late for the start of play and they were fined 3VPs. Let's hope that does not return to haunt them later.

Our Austrian hosts were unable to reproduce their form of the previous day when they also amassed 72 VPs. This time they had to be content with a modest 45, but they are still just about in contention for a medal.

Italy continued to score at a phenomenal rate, but the overnight co-leaders Hungary could not match them. The Italians started the day with a fourth consecutive maximum and then proved they were human, scoring 'only' 21 VPs in the fifth round. Normal service was almost resumed in round six when they collected 24 VPs. Even though we are not quite at the half way stage there can be little doubt that they will capture the Gold medals.