ISAF Sailing World Championships Santander - Double French RS-X gold

by ISAF on 20 Sep 2014 There was double French gold in the RS:X fleets at the Santander 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championships as Julien Bontemps claimed the men's title and Charline Picon picked up the women's.

Picon had sealed Women's RS:X gold overnight whilst Bontemps had a comfortable lead in the men's and needed a solid race to seal the deal.

With tough sailing conditions on the Duna Course that saw winds gust up to 25 knots there was plenty of shuffles in the pack as the action played out in front of a capacity crowd and a worldwide TV audience.

Przemyslaw Miarczynski (POL) took silver and Thomas Goyard (FRA) took bronze in the men's fleet. The home crowd had something to cheer about in the women's division as Spain's Marina Alabau sealed silver ahead of Maayan Davidovich (ISR).

Men's and Women's RS:X Reports Courtesy of Olga Maslivets, International RS:X Class Association

It was a difficult start with the fleet split up into two groups with half lining up on starboard and the others crossing behind on port.

With tensions high and hearts pumping, the individual recall flag prompted medal contender Piotr Myszka (POL) to come back and restart but it was clear that others were also over the line at the start as the flag remained on the race committee boat.

Greece's Byron Kokkalanis (GRE) rounded the windward mark first, followed by Louis Giard (FRA) and Le Coq (FRA) but the real battle was playing out behind the trio as all three were scored OCS.

With the race leaders out of contention, overnight leader Julien Bontemps (FRA) looking increasingly assured of the gold medal. With the pack bunched up together, the left hand side of the course was the place to go upwind and downwind. With choppy waves rebounding back off the Dune, unpredictability at the bottom gate caused Kokkalanis, Dorian van Rijsselberge (NED) and Kiran Badloe (NED) to lose control and drop their sails in the water to oos and aahs from the crowd.

On the final lap Thomas Goyard (FRA) showed impressive speed, climbing through the fleet to take the bullet and with it the bronze medal. An outstanding achievement for the young Frenchman whose best achievement in advance of Santander was a sixth at the recent RS:X European Championship in Alcati, Turkey. After racing he was super happy and couldn't believe he won a medal.

Bontemps finished behind his compatriot and sealed his second RS:X world title and the celebrations commenced.

Miarczynski sailed conservatively throughout the race to protect his podium position. He came through in third to pick up silver and his fourth RS:X world championship medal.

Badloe, Dempsey and Van Rijsselberge finished fourth to sixth respectively.

Myszka walked away frustrated after he missed out on bronze following a pre-race equipment inspection penalty of two points. He ended up tied on 60 points with Goyard and lost out on bronze after he finished behind the young Frenchman in the Medal Race.

The Women's RS:X started after the Men's fleet in a comfortable but puffy 15-18 knots. The start was slightly delayed due to the big ship leaving the harbour.

There was no surprise on the start as all the girls started on starboard with a brilliant one for Flavia Tartaglini (ITA), Bryony Shaw (GBR) and Jiahui Wu (CHN). Charline Picon (FRA) had the medal in her pocket so didn't take any risks and started a few seconds after the starting gun. Despite being a late starter Picon's incredible speed and very smart sailing through the shifts saw her win the Medal Race.

Tartaglini had quite comfortable lead over Wu but a few late tacks dropped her to fifth at the finish and sixth overall. Santander 2014 didn't come easy for Tartaglini who looks forward to a good rest and proper winter training.

Wu kept her second till the finish and jumped to fourth overall. Wu, who finished second at ISAF Sailing World Cup Hyeres this year, is aiming for a medal at the 2014 Worlds as she is pretty happy with her current speed.

The fight for silver between Maayan Davidovich (ISR) and Marina Alabau (ESP) played out to the finish with Alabau pipping the Israeli at the finish to take silver. The home nation sailor had an extremely good second half of the event and feels she is on the right track to reach the heights of Picon who has set very high standards.

Davidovich who has bronze from the 2012 RS:X Worlds felt quite comfortable and relaxed during the event and is happy with her sailing and is looking forward to improving the colour of her medal next time out.

RS:X Men Overall

 

Pos	Nation	Sail Number	Crew	Race												Points
				1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	Total	Net
1	FRA	FRA 6	Julien Bontemps	4	3	5	(7)	3	3	1	1	4	2	4	4	41.00	34.00
2	POL	POL 126	Przemyslaw Miarczynski	2	7	(8)	2	6	2	5	4	7	5	7	8 DPI	63.00	55.00
3	FRA	FRA 3	Thomas Goyard	19	(30)	3	3	2	5	2	2	9	3	10	2	90.00	60.00
4	POL	POL 82	Piotr Myszka	4	2	10	2	1	7	4	6	2	6	(15)	16 DPI	75.00	60.00
5	GBR	GBR 1	Nick Dempsey	5	6	1	4	3	11	(20)	19	13	4	2	10	98.00	78.00
6	GRE	GRE 8	Byron Kokkalanis	6	4	1	5	12 DPI	8	(15)	3	5	1	13	22 OCS	95.00	80.00
7	NED	NED 8	Dorian Van Rijsselberge	3	8	7	3	4	14	6	8	15	(19)	11	12	110.00	91.00
8	NED	NED 9	Kiran Badloe	2	5	10	17	7	9	9	11	8	(31)	14	8	131.00	100.00
9	FRA	FRA 1	Louis Giard	1	3	11	8	8	6	10	12	11	9	(27)	22 OCS	128.00	101.00
10	FRA	FRA 77	Pierre le Coq	1	1	(50) DSQ	10	1	15	21	13	6	14	1	22 OCS	155.00	105.00
11	ISR	ISR 21	Nimrod Mashich	8	33	7	12	(36)	1	17	5	3	7	3		132.00	96.00
12	GER	GER 3	Toni Wilhelm	3	4	3	5	22	18	8	9	(50) DNS	10	21		153.00	103.00
13	ESP	ESP 7	Ivan Pastor Lafuente	11	2	4	14	17	12	11	16	16	(26)	12		141.00	115.00
14	POL	POL 182	Pawel Tarnowski	13	5	20	28	(29)	17	7	7	1	13	6		146.00	117.00
15	BRA	BRA 1	Ricardo Santos	7	1	14	12	12	(28)	28	18	12	18	9		159.00	131.00
16	NZL	NZL 151	Jon-Paul Tobin	9	10	9	4	24	4	3	(50) RET	29	12	30		184.00	134.00
17	CHN	CHN 1	Aichen Wang	9	13	6	1	5	(37)	35	26	10	20	26		188.00	151.00
18	DEN	DEN 158	Sebastian Fleischer	15	25	4	7	10	22	13	14	(50) RET	24	24		208.00	158.00
19	GBR	GBR 49	Joe Bennett	23	27	14	8	18	10	12	(34)	24	8	17		195.00	161.00
20	CYP	CYP 1	Andreas Cariolou	10	(50) OCS	5	10	31	16	16	10	50 RET	11	8		217.00	167.00

 

RS:X Women Overall

 

Pos	Nation	Sail Number	Crew	Race												Points
				1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	Total	Net
1	FRA	FRA 4	Charline Picon	1	1	4	2	2	3	3	3	3	3	(9)	2	36.00	27.00
2	ESP	ESP 5	Marina Alabau	5	(16)	13	6	6	2	10	8	2	1	2	12	83.00	67.00
3	ISR	ISR 10	Maayan Davidovich	4	10	6	8	(16)	5	4	2	1	8	5	14	83.00	67.00
4	CHN	CHN 5	Jiahui Wu	3	15	(16)	1	7	6	11	5	11	5	3	4	87.00	71.00
5	GBR	GBR 9	Bryony Shaw	5	11	1	5	2	9	(23)	10	6	9	7	10	98.00	75.00
6	ITA	ITA 46	Flavia Tartaglini	2	(17)	14	9	11	16	1	4	8	2	4	9 DPI	97.00	80.00
7	POL	POL 8	Zofia Noceti-Klepacka	(16)	3	3	10	9	1	8	1	12	16	16	6	101.00	85.00
8	FRA	FRA 22	Eugénie Ricard	9	1	5	6	8	4	6	11	7	(13)	12	20	102.00	89.00
9	GBR	GBR 30	Isobel Hamilton	6	2	7	(16)	8	13	7	9	4	12	6	16	106.00	90.00
10	NED	NED 171	Lilian De Geus	2	10	5	10	5	10	5	(13)	9	6	10	18	103.00	90.00
11	ESP	ESP 1	Blanca Manchon	11	12	8	15	9	7	9	6	(20)	4	1		102.00	82.00
12	CHN	CHN 21	Manjia Zheng	16	(22)	6	8	7 DPI	8	12	7	16	10	8		120.00	98.00
13	POL	POL 1	Hanna Zembrzuska	4	15	(16)	13	13	12	2	12	13	7	13		120.00	104.00
14	BRA	BRA 8	Patricia Freitas	9	2	9	2	3	15	15	18	(25)	20	19		137.00	112.00
15	FIN	FIN 1	Tuuli Petäjä-Sirén	7	6	15	7	(32) DSQ	11	13	17	18	11	11		148.00	116.00
16	POL	POL 104	Kamila Smektala	8	8	12	5	4	14	(19)	15	15	18	17		135.00	116.00
17	POL	POL 21	Malgorzata Bialecka	6	5	3	4	7	20	17	(25)	14	19	22		142.00	117.00
18	ITA	ITA 11	Laura Linares	7	7	8	(32) OCS	6	19	14	16	17	14	14		154.00	122.00
19	RUS	RUS 271	Stefania Elfutina	21	12	2	4	12	(23)	16	14	10	17	15		146.00	123.00
20	CHN	CHN-7	Yunxiu Lu	3	(28)	14	1	17	26	21	28	5	15	18		176.00	148.00

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