Day One - 470 Junior Worlds

by 470 Event media on 24 Jul 2008 Racing got underway yesterday at the Junior 470 World Championships for Men/Mixed and Women crews, taking from 21 to 29 July in Gdynia, Poland. After some hours of waiting for wind, a freshening breeze of up to 15 knots came up in the afternoon, to have two races completed in all groups in both events.

For the first time, the Junior 470 World Championships are separated into two events; Men/Mixed and Women. The Men/Mixed Fleet started divided into two groups of 32 boats each. The groups will change daily until Friday, the last day of qualifying series, that needs at least six races. The Championship will continue on Saturday with the final series, having the Fleet divided in to Gold and Silver.

The Women’s fleet is 25 boats strong from 15 nations. They will have two races on the schedule until the 28th.

Both Men/Mixed and the Women will have their medal race on the 29th of July.

Men/Mixed 470 Junior Worlds
Amir YAM and Lavie LIOR from Israel were leading their group by scoring two bullets. Amir YAM has proven to be one of World’s best 'under the age of 22' two person dinghy sailors. The last few years, he won several medals at Junior 470 Championships with Levine EYAL, who has grown over the age limit.

The boys from Portugal, Antonia ROSA and Joao ROSA and Sweden’s Victor BERGSTROM and Marcus DACKHAMMER, who take a 2nd and 3rd place on the leaderboard must have celebrated their first day efforts. Both crews did not have a chance in the past to taste the flavour of a top 3 position in an International Championship.

The Championship has just started, but the opening in the Men/Mixed 470 event looks promising in all ways.

Women's Junior 470 Worlds
Tara PACHECO and Berta BETAZOS (ESP), defending their girls’ silver status of last year’s Junior Worlds, take the lead after day one with two races completed. They manage to stay in front of Hannah MILLS and Katrina HUGHES (GBR), and Stacey OMAY and Chelsea HALL (AUS). The game is far from over yet, however it may be expected that the overnight top three girls’ crews, all in a stage of a growing international reputation, may fight exciting battles the coming days.

Racing continued today at 11:00

Results:
No Sailno Name Scores 1 2

Top 5 - Men/Mixed
1 ISR 9 Lavie LIOR, Amir YAM 2,0 1 1
2 POR 17 Antonia ROSA, Joao ROSA 4,0 2 2
3 SWE 333 Victor BERGSTROM, Marcus DACKHAMMAR 5,0 4 1
4 GRE 7 Georgios VASILAS, Efstathios PAPADOPOULOS 6,0 3 3
5 NED 77 Steven LE FEVRE, Steven KROL 7,0 1 6

Top 5 - Women
1 ESP 696 Tara PACHECO, Berta BETAZOS 2.0 1 1
2 GBR 835 Hannah MILLS, Katrina HUGHES 4.0 2 2
3 AUS 352 Stacey OMAY, Chelsea HALL 6.0 3 3
4 GBR 840 Sophie WEGUELIN, Sophie AINSWORTH 9.0 5 4
5 SWE 33 Lisa ERICSON, Astrid, GABRIELSSON 9.0 4 5

For more information and full results, please visit the event web site: http://www.470.sails.pl/jwc2008/
or the web site of the Intl. 470 Class Association: http://www.470.org/champ08/jwc/