470 Junior Worlds - Prizegiving Ceremony mark the Celebrations halfway

by International 470 Class Association on 4 Aug 2013 Jordi Xammar/Joan Herp (ESP) have won the Gold medal in the 470 Men and Maelenn Lemaitre/Aloise Retornaz (FRA) did the same in the 470 women's event at the 2013 470 Junior World Championships in La Rochelle

The achievements of the 179 teams from 28 nations competing in the 470 Junior Worlds, 470 Masters’ Cup and Open Classic events were celebrated at the 470 Class 50th Anniversary Gala Dinner on Saturday evening in La Rochelle, France.

Saturday’s racing got underway with the medal races for the 470 Junior Worlds, with the men up on the track first, followed by the women.

Time for some celebrations for the medallists, before the 50 Year Cup, which saw around 200 boats, including the 1964 built 470 carrying #13 sail number, the oldest known 470 still existing, complete a long distance course which ended by the old harbour of La Rochelle. The sight was truly spectacular with hundreds of 470s crewed by legends of 470 sailing through to the newest teams simply having lots of fun. A parade of sail took teams into the old harbour with live commentary and crowds of spectators, along with other 470 teams applauding and cheering.

Jo Aleh from New Zealand, 2012 Olympic Gold medallist, was one of those watching and summed up the experience perfectly, 'It was just awesome!'

470 Men
Jordi Xammar/Joan Herp from Spain became the new 2013 470 Junior World Champions with a second place finish in the medal race to seal victory with an eight point advantage.

The pair held the overall lead going into the medal race, but with a narrow points advantage three points between first and second and then another three points to third leaving the field wide open for any of the top four teams to get gold. Commenting on their approach to the race, Herp said, 'It was all really close and with double points for the Medal Race, so we just didn’t know what to do, but just raced as we know. We had quite a good start and really concentrated and prayed a lot!'

The pair have enjoyed great success together, including winning the ISAF Youth Worlds in 2010 and the top placed junior team at the 2011 420 Worlds. Cipra continued, 'It is amazing. It is the toughest Championship we have won. When we won the ISAF Youths it was maybe a bit easier. Here, the entire Championship we have been coming from behind and until the last day we couldn’t imagine this would happen. When we crossed the line, Jordi was crying!'

Xammar explained his understandable emotions, 'From the last upwind, I was just crying. We started the downwind and it was gusty and difficult and we passed the mark second. And then during the last downwind, we thought we may finish the race in last as it was really hard. When we crossed the line, it was ok now it is done and we have achieved after all the work we have put in this year.'

The pair crossed the line and capsized. 'When we won the 420 Worlds, we didn’t capsize,' said Xammar. 'First time Joan tried to capsize us, I was not sure whether we had really crossed the line or not,' he grinned. 'So, I made us wait a moment to be sure. This is just amazing. We couldn’t dream about winning this. The first part of the Championship was really hard for us and we went into the finals in thirteenth place and then dropped to 15th after the first day of finals. We just had to concentrate really hard and sail how we know and we did it.'

Taking the best start off the line were Spain’s David Charles/Alex Charles and the pair held their advantage from start to finish to win the medal race, but it was impossible to achieve the impossible and they finished in fifth overall.

A brilliant outcome for Julien Autenrieth/Matti Cipra, who came together as a new combination for the Junior Worlds. Cipra’s usual helm had broken his leg and Autenrieth’s brother is too old to compete at the 470 Junior Worlds, so they came together for their first ever assault on a Junior World Championship and walked away with the silver medal.

'I feel perfect,' said Cipra. 'It was a really nice race. Right at the last reach we thought we were third and then we saw that the Israel guy had the OCS, so we were very happy, otherwise we would have been third.'

At the 470 Worlds, which start on Monday, Autenrieth will be back sailing with his brother Phillip, whilst Cipra is pairing up with another helm, Tim Fischer, for the 2013 470 Junior European Championships.

'We had about 10 days training before this and managed to do lots of manoeuvres. We had some problems in the downwind, but we managed well.' Ironic that together these two have achieved better than Julian and Phillip, but Julian explained that having spent the past few years focusing on their education, the brothers have been training really hard this year which has delivered a big improvement in technique.

There was almost a massive disappointment for Israel’s Gal Cohen/Dan Froyliche who made the fatal mistake off crossing the line too early to take an OCS penalty and almost miss out on a medal. The pair thought they had started clean, and so continued to race. A brilliant performance in the qualifying and final series was almost destroyed, but fortunately for them, their closest rivals on the race course finished just one place behind them, assuring the Israelis of the bronze medal.

'This was our goal and we did it,' said Cohen. 'When you are sailing on the course, it is always the same you must think about other things, and not feel pressure of what you are trying to do.'

At 17 years old, Cohen is one of the youngest helms racing here and today was the first medal race for the pair. 'It was fun and there were not a lot of fights in the race. We were all sailing and not fighting,' concluded Cohen.

'It is a really good feeling to be back on the podium after many years,' said Froyliche. 'Because of the 50th Anniversary it is even more special.' Froylich

In less than two weeks, the Junior World medallists, along with many of the other teams competing in La Rochelle, will all meet again at the 2013 470 Junior European Championships which get underway in Pwllheli, Great Britain on 14 August 2013.

In a touching medal ceremony, reigning 470 Champions awarded medals to the men’s teams, with Jo Aleh/Polly Powrie (NZL) 2012 Olympic Gold Medallists, Hannah Mills/Saskia Clark (GBR) 2012 470 World Champions and Camille Lecointre/Mathilde Geron (FRA) 2013 470 European Champions, placing medals over the heads of the next generation of 470 sailors.

Men – Final Top 8 Overall
1. Jordi Xammar/Joan Herp (ESP) – 31 pts
2. Julien Autenrieth/Matti Cipra (GER) – 39 pts
3. Gal Cohen/Dan Froyliche (ISR) – 48 pts
4. Pierre Quiroga/Clement Pequin (FRA) – 49 pts
5. David Charles/Alex Charles (ESP) – 52 pts
6. Guillaume Pirouelle/Valentin Sipan (FRA) - 59 pts
7. Matteo Capurro/Matteo Puppo (ITA) – 62 pts
8. Mike Wood/Hugh BrayShaw (GBR) – 68 pts

470 Women
France’s Maelenn Lemaitre/Aloise Retornaz and the Ukraine’s Anna Kyselova/Anastasiya Krasko had wrapped up their gold and silver medals with a day to spare, but behind these top two all of the teams through to seventh place on the leader board were in the fight for the bronze medal.

A career best achievement for Lemaitre/Retornaz, 'It is very exciting, because we also win in La Rochelle and our first gold medal in a World Championship, so it is just very, very exciting for us,' said Retornaz.

'It was very, very hard to win. The Ukraine team are very strong all the week, so it was a physical and mental competition. We win after some really close battles,' added Lemaitre. 'I hope we will win again and we are excited to have another challenge with them.'

A career best for the Ukraine team too. 'When we were coming here to this Championship, we didn’t expect to get second place,' said Kyselova. 'We were dreaming about maybe third, so we are really happy with second. Although we knew we had the silver medal today anyway, we just tried to enjoy the race and do a good start and do what we could.'

The pair led the fleet through part of the medal race, as Krasko explained, 'We were almost the first. We were first at the windward mark on the second rounding and then lost a bit going downwind, because we couldn’t pump.'

'In international events, this is our best result,' added Kyselova. 'We are really happy with it. Now we are just thinking we have to do a good 470 Worlds and then do even better at the 470 Junior Europeans.'

Nadine Bohm/Karoline Gotzer (GER) sealed the bronze medal with a third place finish in the medal race. The led the race for the first upwind and downwind, slipping back to second as the Ukraine team pushed ahead, and finally crossing the line in third. Had Bohm/Gotzer finished another place further back in the fleet it would all have been very different, as Spain’s Barbara Cornudella/Sara Lopez took the race win and would have had the advantage.

Mat Belcher/Malcolm Page (AUS) 2012 Olympic gold medallists and three-time time 470 World Champions, Luke Patience/Joe Glanfield (GBR) who between them carry multiple Olympic and World Championship medals, and Sofian Bouvet/Jeremie Mion (FRA) 2013 European Champions, presented the medals to the women’s teams.

Women – Final Top 8 Overall
1. Maelenn Lemaitre/Aloise Retornaz - 23 pts
2. Anna Kyselova/Anastasiya Krasko – 35 pts
3. Nadine Bohm/Karoline Gotzer (GER) – 77 pts
4. Barbara Cornudella/Sara Lopez (ESP) – 79 pts
5. Joanna Freeman/Katie Tomsett – 79 pts
6. Amy SeaBright/Anna Carpenter (GBR) – 82 pts
7. Tsuf Zamet/Lia Biran (ISR) - 82 pts
8. Elena Berta/Alice Sinno (ESP) – 102 pts

50th Anniversary Gala Dinner
The evening opened with the presentation of medals to the winners of the four Masters’ Cup divisions and Open Classic events by amongst others Carlo Croce, President of the International Sailing Federation, Jean-Pierre Champion President of the Federation Francaise de Voile and Stanislav Kassarov, President of the International 470 Class Association. The Masters' Cup and Open Classic events had concluded on Friday second August.

Following the presentation of the medals for the 470 Junior World Championships, celebrations included a presentation of a commemorative t-shirt to the most outstanding 470 sailor ever, Malcolm Page, which had been signed by all teams competing in the 470 Men medal race at the 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships in Australia.

The teams competing in the 470 Legends' Trophy then lined up on stage for the cutting of the enormous 50th Anniversary birthday cake. The evening's celebrations continued with a buffet dinner and party.