O'pen Bic World Championship - Italian and Aussie victorious

by Elena Giolai on 6 Aug 2013 The O'pen Bic World Championships gave us three amazing days here on Garda Trentino as the ultimate in championships for this young and dynamic juvenile class took place at Riva del Garda, organised by Fraglia Vela Riva and with twelve nations taking part.

Sun and wind provided the right conditions to complete 10 races in the under 16 category and seven in the under 13's. Fun, spectacle, capsizing, penalties, high-speed, starts, false starts with black flags for general recalls practically at every start, great competition with lots of young people were all the winning ingredients for this thrilling, fast, high-performing, O'pen Bic class. Fraglia Vela Riva brought to a close this latest event in a summer of sizzling international competition with the satisfaction of having been able to experience together with the competitors and the officials of the international sailing class, the down- wind slalom, a course never attempted before.

The greatest satisfaction, however, was to see so many Italians in the final standings which crowned Federico Zampiccoli (Circolo Vela Arco), World Champion after a heated battle that was decided in the final race with fellow Italian Guido Gallinaro (Fraglia Vela Riva). Zampiccoli was overtaken in today's first race by Gallinaro, but managed to keep his cool and gave it his best in the remaining two races coming in first to win in front of Gallinaro with a five point lead, (a first and a partial second gave him the edge over Gallinaro who had a 4-3 with the second discard applied after the ninth race.)

In the under 16 category, Paula Igual Garcia took third place after beating another Italian to the podium. Unfortunately Alberto Tezza (Fraglia Vela Riva) was penalized in the penultimate race for a false start which he made up for with a win in the final race, but it wasn't enough to give him the points for the bronze medal. A well deserved medal for Igual Garcia, however, who was able to show consistent form beating many boys in the process!

The satisfaction for Fraglia Vela Riva was doubled at the World O'pen Cup for both the organisational success and for the success of its own athletes. As well as the silver for Guido Gallinaro in the under 16's, Andrea Spagnolli took the silver in the under 13's. He had tried so hard to overtake Australian Kirsten Wadley but she remained the undisputed winner with six partial firsts and a discarded second leaving no doubt that she would take home the gold medal. Another medal for Italy came from Ludovico Journo, bronze medallist in the under 13 Event website