Laser Radial World, Day 6 - Champions crowned

by Sue Pelling on 26 Jul 2010 Laser Radial World Youth Championship - After a highly charged day’s racing on the Clyde in some of the trickiest conditions of the week, Giovanni Coccoluto (ITL) and Erika Reineke (USA) have been crowned the new Laser Radial World Youth Champions.

The upper reaches of the Clyde just to the north of Cumbrae, provided the perfect stage for the final two races of this very competitive and enjoyable series, allowing competitors to really push to their full potential.

In tricky, shifty, light to moderate winds reaching no more than 8-15kts, 16-year-old Reineke from Fort Lauderdale, FL won the event with a race to spare, which is exactly what she set out to do when she left the shore this morning.

In what turned out to be her last race, she had a fairly conservative first beat but this bubbly, determined yet incredibly cool young sailor kept her head when the going was tough and worked her way to the top of the fleet finishing in fourth place, which was enough to secure the overall world championship title. The winner was Evgeniya Kuznetsova (RUS) who sailed an impressive race to take her first win of the week, followed by Amalie Riou (FRA) and Chiara Steinmueller (GER) in second and third respectively.

Manami Doi (JPN) managed to retain her second place overall with a seventh in the last race, while Michelle Broekhuizen (NED) had to settle for third.

Today’s seventh and 37th may have ranked among his worst results of the week but the extremely cool-headed Italian – Giovanni Coccoluto from Circolo Della Vela Muggia – still managed to pull off an exceptionally impressive series to win the Laser Radial Youth Boys’ Championship.

Coccoluto, fresh from winning bronze at the recent ISAF Youth World Championship in Turkey, and winner of the 2009 Laser 4.7 European championship in Helsinki, bagged some consistently good results earlier this week which helped secure the overall title. He won the regatta by a margin of just two points over second placed Tadeusz Kubiak (POL). Kubiak who comes from Szczecin, Poland had a fifth in the first race of the day but not surprisingly, was controlled by Coccoluto in the final race of the series.

Boys Overall Results (after 10 races, 2 discards)

1 Giovanni Coccoluto (ITA) 61pts
2 Tadeusz Kubiak (POL) 63pts
3 Luca Antognoli (ITA) 64pts
4 Stefano Mazzaferro (BRA) 74pts
5 Mitchell Kiss (USA) 76pts
6 Ioannis Beginas (GRE) 77pts

Girls Overall Results (after 11 races, 2 discards)

1 Erika Reineke (USA) 22pts
2 Manami Doi (JPN) 49pts
3 Michelle Broekhuizen (NED) 53pts
4 Chiara Steinmueller (GER) 68pts
5 Julia Vallo Arjonilla (ESP) 72pts
6 Tiril Bue (NOR) 72pts

For full results go to the website: http://www.laserworlds2010.co.uk/radialyouth