BEWDLEY'S Alison Young believes there are “plenty of opportunities” for her to get herself into the medal hunt after finishing the opening day of her Rio 2016 Laser Radial competition lying in 13th place overall today.

World Champion Young scored 13th and 18th places in the Laser Radial class’s two races on Guanabara Bay’s Escola Naval course, and was left cursing her mistakes as the shifty breezes gave the 37-strong fleet plenty to think about.

But she insists there is still lots to be learned as she bids to move her Rio campaign up a gear heading into day two tomorrow.

She said: “It was a tricky day out there racing. There were lots of opportunities on the racecourse, but unfortunately I made a few too many mistakes so there’s room to work on through the rest of the week.

“The breeze is pretty shifty, we had some differences in the tide as well so it was just tricky racing.

"But I expect it to be challenging all the way through the week from what we’ve seen out here so far, so there are plenty of opportunities still to go. “It’s nice to get going.

"Unfortunately it wasn’t my best day on the water, but there is some learning to take forward to the rest of the regatta.

"We will chat through the day with my coach and look at what we can work on tomorrow.”

The Radial leaderboard is headed by defending London 2012 champion, Lijia Xu (CHN) with 2014 World Champion and London silver medallist, Marit Bouwmeester (NED) in second and 2015 World Champion, Anne-Marie Rindom (DEN) in third.

Racing for the Laser Radials resumes at 5pm British Standard Time this afternoon.