Techno 293 European Championship - 131 competitors take part

by IWA Office on 5 Nov 2013 Competitors in the 2013 Techno 293 European Championships were welcomed to the Nautical Centre in Eilat, a place where the sun always shines, with an impressive display of country flags flying at the Opening Ceremony. 131 competitors took part in the championship, from 17 countries plus Israel.

Two countries new to the international scene, Slovenia and Slovakia, joined the European line up - a sure sign that the Techno 293 Class is continuing to grow.

Two races a day were planned. As so often happens, despite the previous four months of good wind, the stronger winds of the two preparation days gave way to light winds for the start of competition. Competitors had to learn to take advantage of wind shifts and gusts which made for interesting racing.

The smiles tell the whole story as winners are awarded their trophies and the championships come to a close. The final day started with stronger wind than the previous days enabling the race committee to run three races. Thus 10 races each with one discard counted for the championship titles.

Youth Boys - 46 young men battled it out and three nationalities finished on the podium. The variable conditions during the week meant the top three places over the finish lines were spread throughout the top 18 of the final ranking list.

It seemed for the first half of the championship that Daniel Harari, Ofek Elimelech and Ukranian Oleksandr Goncharenko had the championship podium sewn up. Daniel and Ofek stretched their lead over Oleksandr who fell off the podium on day three when the discard came into play. Argentinian Francisco Saubidet Birkner made a dramatic leap from 15th place to third having lost his disastrous OCS in the first championship race worth 47 points, and Russian Nikita Prozorov edged up into fourth place.

Francisco now shared equal points with Daniel Harari who had slipped to second place, and Ofek was at the top of the leaderboard having discarded his race three.

Oleksandr made a strong come back on day four, taking the bullet in race seven to make it back on to the podium in silver position, while Daniel Harari lost his form and was in danger of sliding off the podium.
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All to play for on the final day with three races. Although his last race ended up as his discard Ofek did enough to maintain his top spot and claim the title of Techno 293 European Youth Boys Champion. It was a great day for the Ukranian Oleksandr as he took two bullets and ended the competition just five points behind Ofek. Russian Nikita Prozorov fared better then Daniel and thus claimed the third place on the podium.

Youth Girls - A very close competition at the top of the fleet with Russian Mariam Sekhposyn finishing just three points ahead of Shoval Ravitzki and Noy Drihan on equal points separated by their discards at the end.

Shoval maintained her top position on the leaderboard until the end of day four. Mariam had fiinished day one on equal points with Shoval but slipped to fourth on day two with a poor result in race four. However, once this was discarded, she was back at the top once again sharing equal points with Shoval, both just one point ahead of Noy Drihan, as they went into the final day of competition. All three girls on the championship podium took a race win on day five but Mariam came out top and thus earns the title of Techno 293 Youth Girls European Champion 2013 after a very closely fought series of races.

Junior Boys - Israelis Itai Kafri and Guy Sitin staked their claims on the top two podium positions from day two. Geronimo Nores from the USA seemed safe in third place until the end of day four when Israeli Adam Tzachar was just one point off the podium, then kicked Geronimo off completely on the final day.

Deserving a special mention is Yoav Cohen who won five of the ten races but, along with the first day leaderboard dominator, Dor Manoach, he was stuck with two 'BFD' at 55 points each, only one of which could be discarded. There is a huge amount of talent in the junior boys fleet demonstrated right down the ranking list with personal triumphs and close competition but consistency rewards in the end.

Junior Girls - Just nine junior girls racing in this championship and Katy Spychakov was tough to beat winning eight out of the 10 races, although second placed Lidia Sulikowska from Poland took the bullets in the second and fourth races. Competition was keen between Lidia and Yarden Isaak, Yarden being ahead of Lidia over the finish line five times out of ten but not doing quite enough to overtake her on the leaderboard.

Youth Boys - 1. ISR 639 Ofek Elimelech 2. UKR 46 Oleksandr Goncharenko 3. RUS 9 Nikita Prozorov
Youth Girls - 1. RUS 13 Mariam Sekhposyan 2. ISR 615 Shoval Ravitzki 3. ISR 620 Noy Drihan
Junior Boys - 1. ISR 309 Itai Kafri 2. ISR 303 Guy Sitin 3. ISR 961 Adam Tzachar
Junior Girls - 1. ISR 630 Katy Spychakov 2. POL 313 Lidia Sulikowska 3 .ISR 252 Yarden Isaak