32 females and 54 males crews sailing to gain 470 Junior Worlds’ title

by segler-zeitung.de on 22 Jun 2016 The Olympic 470 two-crew dinghy is starting its Junior World Championship today. The event officially started yesterday evening with a opening ceremony in Kiel-Schilksee with wonderful weather.

“Today is our evening”, said Kiel Week head of organisation Dirk Ramhorst and did welcome the 86 teams from 22 nations, before handing over the word to the president of the international 470 class association Stanislav Kasparov from Bulgaria. The German siblings Malte and Birte Winkel did take the athlete’s oath after that - both will be sailing in the following days in two of 23 German teams in total for a placement in the top ranking.

Already with the parade of the nations, which was accompanied by the thrilling beats of the samba school Kiel when walking from the sponsors’ area to the Audi stage, it was obvious, that the big part of the junior sailors have had a long travel: The national flags from South Africa, Brazil, Russia, Japan, Malaysia and even from Australia and New Zealand as well as many other European and international flags were carried by the flag bearers, before the sailors of the age group under 24 did move on to the Kiel Week Lounge for a photo shooting, skipper briefing and an opening dinner.

The two Australian sailors Thomas Klemens (21) and Tim Hannah (23) are currently moving from one event to the next. The Junior Worlds in Kiel are a final event of their 470 tour around Europe, which led them to Palma, Hyères, Weymouth and now Kiel. The sailors, who are on rank three in the Australian ranking, want to be part of the gold fleet. “And then we’ll see, how we go on”, says Klemens. His crew adds: “It is always great to meet the other 470 sailors at the World Championship.”

Nino Shmueli, overall race director of the inshore race courses, is expecting technically and tactically demanding races in the fleet. “There are many very talented sailors at the start line”, says Shmueli, who will also be supervising the races in Rio in August being the top level race director. “In the following days, the athletes, on whom hopes are pinned for the Olympic Games 2020, will be sailing here”, says Shmueli.

The young sailors from Shmueli’s home territory in Israel are also dreaming of the Games 2020: Maor Abu and Yoav Ruz want to be sailing with the objective for an Olympic medal within four years. But for now, the Junior Champions from Israel are looking at the medals of the Junior Worlds.

The race director for the 470s Fabian Bach did wish them and all others fair racing in the following five days - and was tempted for a little prediction: “Noone will be partying until late this night, the junior 470 sailors are competitive athletes.”

Brevan Thompson (23) und Alex Burger (20) from South Africa did confirm his thesis: They have been training for four days in Kiel to have a chance to be in the top 15, and maybe even in the top 10 if everything goes well. “The Junior Worlds are a highly regarded event and with the festival atmosphere at the Kiel Week, it is a lot of fun to be here”, says helmsman Thompson.

The Kiel Week Lounge indeed was pretty empty short after the buffet - the sailors did back off to recover their strength or maybe also to get in a good position for the fireworks of the opening ceremony, which was the colourful finish of the first part of the Kiel Week and at the same time the start of the second part.