OK, my two penn'orth - I support the idea of the medal race, it certainly concentrates the mind at the end of the series. However, I can't see the rationale behind ruining someones series over an undiscardable bad placing that may have not been that person's fault.

For example I remember being in a port/stbd incident at Kiel week one year when an Italian T tacked too late and right in front of me just as I bore away to go astern of him - OUCH! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> I lost two races as a result but fortunately was able to use my discards and still have a reasonable series, placing 33rd out of 80 something. My point is that an incident may have repercussions for subsequent races and may not have been the fault of the person suffering the loss. I think that 1 discard after 6 races and 2 after 10 sailed is fairer. Bear in mind that the 'norm' used to be 1 discard after every 4 races sailed during the 70s/80s.