470 Men and Women World Championships - Racing abandoned on day 2

by 470 International Association Class on 16 Sep 2014 An anti-climax on race day two here at the 470 Worlds in Santander, Spain as again there was no wind. The 470 Men and 470 Women fleets were initially postponed on shore.

But a sniff of breeze out on the race course brought the postponement flag down and teams headed out. But it was all to no avail and five hours later they were heading back to shore with no races completed.

So a bit of a bikini party out on the race course as sailors stripped off to stay cool and enjoy the late-Summer sun.

The 470 Women Yellow fleet got into sequence for race two, but racing was abandoned before the start as the wind continued to play games. And that turned out to be the only action of the day for 470 racing.

Four races are required to complete the qualification series, so racing will continue on Tuesday 16 September, with races three and four scheduled for the 470 Women and races two, three and four for the 470 Men.

With no racing to report on, we take a look at a couple of 470 teams who are looking ahead to Rio 2016.

Two years at the London 2012 Olympics, Lara Vadlau secured the final nation slot for Austria and was the youngest competing helm. Heading into Rio 2015, plans are looking a bit different.

The London 2012 Olympic bug had well and truly caught Vadlau and she relished a new start for Rio 2016. That came in the shape of Poland's Jola Ogar, who also competed at London 2012, finishing 12th with helm Agnieszka Skrzypulec.

Vadlau has trodden an upwards path since the 2012 Olympic Games, where she finished at the back of the fleet and now just two years later is beating the 2012 Olympic gold and silver medallists. It was only in 2011 that Vadlau won gold in the 420 Class at the ISAF Youth Worlds, and the year before won gold in the one-person dinghy event at the inaugural Olympic Youth Games in Singapore in 2010.

Vadlau/Ogar were the headline act at this year’s 470 European Championships in Athens, winning gold after a decisive race series. The team are now amongst the frontrunners to stand on the podium at the ISAF Worlds and at the forefront of Austria’s Olympic medal hopes ahead of Rio 2016.

It was a chance meeting at what Vadlau described as the 'losers’ party' in Perth 2011, that set in motion what has become one of the most successful 470 partnerships on the circuit. At that last ISAF Sailing World Championships in Perth, Australia, the pair were sailing for their respective nations, Austria for Vadlau and Poland for Ogar. Both had qualified to the 470 Women gold fleet, but neither made it to the top 10 medal race. It was a chance meeting at the commiseration beach party for the teams not in the medal race that led to the pair chatting and a friendship being sealed. As Vadlau concluded, 'Sometimes you must fall to stand up!'

Summing up the past two years, Vadlau said, 'The last Olympics was like a dream that we could qualify and that dream came true. After London, for me it was clear that I wanted to sail with Jola and we did everything to make it happen. We had to convince our federation and convince everyone around us and we had this one year of trying. In 2013, we were vice-European and vice-World Champions, so it became pretty clear that ‘those girls could win’ together and yeh here we are now. Hopefully we will qualify for Rio. But that will only be a step towards Rio, nothing more.'

Of the 20 nation slots in the 470 Women event at the 2016 Olympics, 10 of those will be secured here at the Santander 2014 ISAF World Sailing Championships. A simple qualification process, will see the top 10 nations on the women’s leader board safely in the line-up for Rio 2016. So it is highly likely the pair will be in the Olympic qualification leader board at the very least, with this their minimum target, and a podium finish the second priority on their job list.

If they achieve their Olympic qualification goal, the team are effectively assured of being selected to represent Austria at the Olympics, as there is no other 470 team able to challenge them. Lara said, 'Now for us, it feels like a step towards Rio. What we have to achieve here is a minimum target. The big target for us is Rio.'

Summing up her life so far in sailing, Vadlau gave a big grin before commenting, 'It is an amazing life. I often think how poor would I be if I had finished school and gone immediately to study, and sit and study all the time. And now I have this amazing chance to travel around the world with Jola together and do what we love. I think I am the luckiest person on earth.'

Races three and and will be held on Tuesday 16 September on Langre course with a scheduled warning signal of 1100 hours.

With no racing to reshuffle the leaderboard, today we focus on the ISAF world ranked number two pair of Panagotis Mantis/Pavlos Kagialis from Greece, one of the many numerous seasoned 470 campaigners here in Santander. The pair are hoping to at least equal last year’s bronze medal appearance on the 470 Worlds podium. A deserved reward after finishing inside the top 10 at the previous four 470 Worlds in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 Worlds.

Mantis has competed in the 470 for 14 years, winning two 470 Junior World Championship titles along the way, in 2001 and 2002 with former crew Theodoros Polychronidis. Partnering up in 2008, Mantis and Kagialis were hopeful of representing their nation at the 2012 Olympic Games, but a one place deficit to their rivals at the 2012 470 World Championships sank their Olympic dream.

The pair secured 2012 Olympic nation qualification for Greece from their performance at the 2011 ISAF Worlds in Perth, finishing in seventh. But when it came to Greece’s national selection process, they finished behind rivals Panagiotis Kampouridis/Papadopoulos Efstathios at the last national selection event, the 2012 470 World Championships.

Massive disappointment at the time, but Mantis and Kagialis bounced back and continue to pursue their dream, and are hoping Rio 2016 will be their Olympics, as Mantis explained, 'It was really hard for us as we pushed so hard to compete at the 2012 Olympics. The conditions in Weymouth were our favourite conditions, so we really wanted to be there. But we had very good opponents, and they had an excellent result in Barcelona so beat us. It was really frustrating, but this is the game of sailing and the beauty of our sport.'

Looking ahead to the campaign for Rio 2016, Mantis continued, 'I believe in the end the best will go.'

Competing on the world’s Olympic stage is a massive commitment, demanding 100% motivation. 'I think the beauty of the 470 motivates us. It is a two-person boat with three sails – it is a skiff, it is a keelboat – it offers everything in sailing,' concluded Mantis.

Races two, three and four will be held on Tuesday 16 September on Murmiar course with a scheduled warning signal of 1100 hours.

470 Men Overall

Pos	Nation	Sail Number	Crew	Race	Points
				1	Total	Net
1	FRA	FRA 27	Sofian Bouvet Jeremie Mion	1	1.00	1.00
1	USA	USA 1713	Stuart Mcnay David Hughes	1	1.00	1.00
3	CRO	CRO 83	Sime Fantela Igor Marenic	2	2.00	2.00
3	FRA	FRA 7	Nicolas Charbonnier Achille Nebout-Javal	2	2.00	2.00
5	GER	GER 15	Julian Autenrieth Philipp Autenrieth	3	3.00	3.00
5	GRE	GRE 165	Panagiotis Kampouridis Efstathios Papadopoulos	3	3.00	3.00
7	AUS	AUS 6	Alexander Conway Patrick Conway	4	4.00	4.00
7	RSA	RSA 1	Asenathi Jim Roger Hudson	4	4.00	4.00
9	FIN	FIN 7	Joonas Lindgren Niklas Lindgren	5	5.00	5.00
9	SWE	SWE 350	Carl-Fredrik Fock Marcus Dackhammar	5	5.00	5.00
11	AUS	AUS 11	Mathew Belcher William Ryan	6	6.00	6.00
11	JPN	JPN 12	Tetsuya Matsunaga Yugo Yoshida	6	6.00	6.00
13	CAN	CAN 6	Jacob Chaplin-Saunders Graeme Chaplin-Saunders	7	7.00	7.00
13	POR	POR 7	António Rosa Ricardo Schedel	7	7.00	7.00
15	GBR	GBR 828	Robert Gullan Sam Brearey	8	8.00	8.00
15	SWE	SWE 349	Anton Dahlberg Fredrik Bergström	8	8.00	8.00
17	GRE	GRE 1	Panagiotis Mantis Pavlos Kagialis	9	9.00	9.00
17	RUS	RUS 10	Kristian Chekh Maxim Cherenkov	9	9.00	9.00
19	GER	GER 10	Ferdinand Gerz Oliver Szymanski	10	10.00	10.00
19	RUS	RUS 5	Pavel Sozykin Denis Gribanov	10	10.00	10.00
21	AUT	AUT 3	Matthias Schmid Florian Reichsteaedter	11	11.00	11.00
21	CHN	CHN 1041	Wuwei Liu Dongwu Lyu	11	11.00	11.00

 

470 Women Overall

Pos	Nation	Sail Number	Crew	Race		Points
				1	2	Total	Net
1	FRA	FRA 39	Maëlenn Lemaitre Aloïse Retornaz	2	1	3.00	3.00
2	BRA	BRA 177	Fernanda Oliveira Ana Luiza Barbachan	1	3	4.00	4.00
3	CHN	CHN 1261	Huimin Feng Lizhu Huang	5	1	6.00	6.00
4	ESP	ESP 27	Angela Pumariega Patricia Cantero Reina	3	4	7.00	7.00
5	FRA	FRA 9	Camille Lecointre Hélène Defrance	3	5	8.00	8.00
6	CHN	CHN 616	Xiaomei XU Ping Zhang	6	3	9.00	9.00
7	NED	NED 216	Afrodite Kyranakou Anneloes van Veen	1	10	11.00	11.00
8	NZL	NZL 75	Jo Aleh Polly Powrie	7	5	12.00	12.00
9	GBR	GBR 118	Hannah Mills Saskia Clark	11	2	13.00	13.00
9	SUI	SUI 5	Linda Fahrni Maja Siegenthaler	11	2	13.00	13.00
11	AUT	AUT 431	Lara Vadlau Jolanta Ogar	2	11	13.00	13.00
12	SLO	SLO 64	Tina Mrak Veronika Macarol	4	11	15.00	15.00
13	CHN	CHN 619	Shasha Chen Haiyan Gao	6	9	15.00	15.00
14	ITA	ITA 6	Elena Berta Giulia Paolillo	12	4	16.00	16.00
15	NED	NED 6	Michelle Broekhuizen Marieke Jongens	4	13	17.00	17.00
16	CZE	CZE 7	Hanka Chudejova Lenka Mrzilkova	10	8	18.00	18.00
17	ESP	ESP 14	Bàrbara Cornudella Sara López Ravetllat	8	10	18.00	18.00
18	EST	EST 20	Marjaliisa Umb Elise Umb	9	9	18.00	18.00
19	USA	USA 1712	Anne Haeger Briana Provancha	14	7	21.00	21.00
20	POR	POR 2	Sara Carmo Matilde Pinheiro de Melo	13	8	21.00	21.00

http://www.sailing.org/events/isafworlds/results-santander2014.php" target="_blank">Click here for full results.

Participation in the Santander 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championships is based on a qualification system, with only the world’s best teams entered by their national sailing federations. In the 470 Men, 73 teams from 30 nations are competing and 54 teams from 30 nations are competing in the 470 Women, for a total of 35 different nations for all six continents.

The 470 World Championship racing schedule is a 10 race series, followed by a top 10 team Medal Race for each fleet. The racing format is four qualification races, scheduled for Sunday 14 and Monday 15 September, after which the fleets will be split into gold and silver fleets. Up next is the six race final series, scheduled for Tuesday 16, Thursday 17 and Friday 18 September. The top 10 teams from the gold fleet final series will then advance to Saturday's medal race. The race discard will kick in from race three. Visit the official Championship website.

The Santander 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championships is the first opportunity teams have to qualify their nations for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. The 470 Men have 13 nation qualification places on offer and there are 10 for the 470 Women - check out the Olympic Qualification System. The next chance to qualify will be the 2015 470 Class World Event website