EUROSAF Garda Trentino Olympic Week - Nick Dempsey back in action

by RYA on 10 May 2013 The Garda Trentino Olympic Week is set to take place 8-12 May and will serve as the first event in the new EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup Series. Brit windsurfing talent Nick Dempsey will be back in competitive action at the event for the first time since claiming his second RS:X windsurfing world title.

The Olympic silver medallist will form part of a streamlined British team of 15 sailors competing across five Olympic classes who will contest the regatta at Riva del Garda, which also includes recent Hyeres World Cup winners Bryony Shaw (RS:X Women) and Andrew Mills (Finn).

Dempsey last competed at the RS:X Windsurfing World Championship at Buzios, Brazil, in March, where he became the first man ever to win two RS:X world titles. The 32-year-old skipped the two European legs of the World Cup series in Palma and Hyeres, focussing instead on fitness training in Palma and Lanzarote, but is back on the board again amid a 26-strong RS:X men’s fleet in Italy this week, which includes the 2012 Olympic Champion Dorian Van Rijsselberge.

Dempsey’s British training partner Tom Squires will also be in action, while Bryony Shaw and Andrew Mills will be looking to continue their winning momentum through to Garda this week in the RS:X women’s and Finn fleets.

Mills captured his first major event victory at the French World Cup event just over a week ago, while Shaw has been on the podium at all three of her competitions this year, kicked off by a first RS:X World Championship medal in Buzios.

Bude’s Izzy Hamilton will also be RS:X racing for the first time since the Buzios Worlds, having been sidelined with a whooping cough-like illness.Former World Champion Ed Wright will feature in the Finn fleet, while Tonbridge Podium squad sailor Chloe Martin will be the sole British representative in the Laser Radial class.

In the Laser class, six of the British Sailing Team’s up and coming Potential squad talents will be looking to make their mark at the Italian venue, including Alex Mills Barton who claimed an impressive set of results at the European World Cups, finishing ninth in Palma and 24th in Hyeres.

Racing at the Garda Trentino Olympic Week gets underway on Wednesday 8 May, with the final medal races on Sunday 12 May.

British Sailing Team members at the 2013 Garda Trentino Olympic Week:
Laser
Elliot Hanson; Ben Cornish; Alex Mills Barton; Jack Wetherall; Lorenzo Chiavirini; Matt Reid

Laser Radial: Chloe Martin
Finn: Ed Wright; Andrew Mills; James Hadden; Paul Childs
RS:X Men: Nick Dempsey; Tom Squires
RS:X Women: Bryony Shaw; Izzy Hamilton

The EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup is a series of five regattas in the Olympic and Paralympic Classes designed to complement the ISAF Sailing World Cup series. Garda Trentino Olympic Week is followed by the Delta Lloyd Regatta (Medemblik, NED, 21-25 May), Sail for Gold Regatta (Weymouth and Portland, GBR, 9-13 June), Kiel Week (Kiel, GER, 22-26 June) and the Semaine Olympique Francaise (La Rochelle, FRA, 9-13 October). Vela Garda RYA website