Six days of action, tears and laughter at the Techno293 World Championships

The sailors that came to the island had six days packed with action and 12 races for most of the fleets. Windsurfers preferring strong winds were looking forward to today’s racing, as the final day of the regatta was predicted to bring winds of 20 plus knots. The day however brought some rain instead and the final starts were raced in 8 to 10 kts.

In the under 17 girls fleet Katy Spychakov from Israel had already secured her gold medal on the previous day and could just enjoy the sailing today. You could tell she is a fighter though because after finishing 9th in the first race of the day, she went on to confirm her domination over the fleet by winning the final race of the regatta. That was her 9th win in the week. Katy’s biggest rival Giorgia Speciale from Italy, having comfortably won the opening race of the day could be certain of her silver medal.

There was much more drama in the fight for the third place. Before the last start Enrica Schirru from Italy and Aikaterini Divari from Greece were tied on points. The Italian was in third for the whole competition, but Aikaterini had beaten her in 6 of the previous races and you could feel the tension. To make matters more interesting the young windsurfers finished the event with their worst results so far. Enrica was 35th and Aikaterini 33rd. After crossing the finish line, the girls did not know who had won. Enrica was sure that she had lost her podium position and cried. There was no need for that and laughter came soon after, when she learned that she was the bronze medallist.

Yoav Cohen was the second sailor from Israel to secure his top position yesterday. The fight for silver and bronze was between Tom Arnoux from France and Fernando Lamadrid Trueba from Spain. Tom needed to beat Fernando by 5 places to secure silver and the Frenchman did more than enough. He won the race and with Fernando eleventh, it is Tom who is taking the silver medal home.

In the under 15 girls there were also some changes in the podium positions. A very strong finish by Russia’s Dana Bekmuratova meant that she could join on the podium the two French competitors, Enora Tanne and Heloise Macquaert. Heloise being the World Champion. The world champion title of the U15 boys went to Leonidas Tsortanidis from Greece, Yun Pouliquen and Fabien Pianazza were second and third.

In the Youth Olympic Techno Plus class the Japanese competitors Yuta Mori and Yuta Iwasaki did really well finishing second and third. They could not stop, however, the local representative of Cagliari Windsurfing Club, Michele Cittadini, from claiming the gold medal. He finished the championships with a first and second. In the women’s fleet Michele’s teammate Elena Vacca came third, just after the French Jeanne Penfornis and Lucie Pianazza.

That concludes the 2015 World Championships.  In 2016 the Techno293 class will travel to Sopot, Poland for the Europeans and will be back to Italy for the Worlds. This time Garda will be the host of this great event.