FOUR-TIME Olympic Star sailor Peter Bromby was battling it out with the leaders yesterday at the Rolex Miami Olympic Class Regatta which features a host of Olympic and World champions.

Bromby and crew Lee White were in sixth place after five races out of 70 boats.

A total of 369 sailors from 34 countries are competing in four Olympic classes (Laser, Laser Radial, Star, and Yngling) and three Paralympic classes.

Bromby and White are competing this week to fine-tune their skills ahead of the Star World Championships which will be also be staged in Miami in the spring and it is there they will be competing for a spot at this summer's Olympics in China.

Since the Star class is the largest in Miami this week, the sailors were split into blue and yellow fleets until Wednesday after which they were re-designated as gold and silver based on their combined overall scoring and the top ten in the gold fleet at the end of fleet racing today will move on to Olympic medal races on Saturday.

The 2004 Star Olympic gold medalist Mark Reynolds from California said this week: "At the last Star Worlds there were teams from 32 countries, and only 15 countries can qualify for the Olympics. Now there are four slots left and 12 countries vying for them, so out of all the Olympic classes, this is the toughest for getting into the Games."

Bromby and White have had finishes of 3, 3, 5 and 6.