International Optimist (IODA) World Championships- Teams Racing report

by IODA on 13 Aug 2009
International Optimist (IODA) World Championships Team racing report.

Niteroi has given us a variety of weather conditions, light and strong winds, sunshine and today, rain. The 12 remaining teams, Malaysia, China, Argentina, Thailand, Singapore, Turkey, USA, Peru, Poland, Slovenia, Brasil and Greece left the shore earlier for what was to be the final day of the Miami Herald Trophy, the IODA World Team Racing Championship.

The favourites were Malaysia who had remained impressive throughout the championship both in the team and the fleet racing. Today however they lost to China and then Poland and these two losses saw them exit the competition.

Finally there were just five teams left. Peru, by now the favourites had advanced to the final but their opponents could be one of 4 teams, Singapore, Poland, China or Greece. These races were some of the most fiercely contested and were challenging for both the competitors and the umpires. Optimist team racing has become more popular in the last couple of years and the standard of the racing here was probably the highest that we have ever seen. All of these teams can be proud of how far they have come in this competition.

Peru’s opponents would now be either Singapore, finalists last year, or China. The race was close, with China finally victorious.

The final was to be the first team to win two races. Both teams had excelled in the light and often shifty conditions, so this was likely to be a race of tactics as they both had equal boat speed. China though seemed to have saved the best until last and they accelerated away from the Peruvian team to score two consecutive wins.

Congratulations team China, the new IODA World Team Racing Champions.

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