ILCA Vilamoura European Continental Qualification - Day 4
by Jon Emmett 23 Apr 2021 05:37 BST
19-24 April 2021
Gold fleet racing started Thursday at the ILCA European Continental Qualification event in Vilamoura. The light winds built for the ILCA 7 before dying for the ILCA 6.
With both ILCA 6 Olympic country spots already awarded yesterday to Israel and Portugal, attention turned to the battle in the ILCA 7.
ILCA 7
Beckett GBR now leading the championship with 24 points and showing an impressive consistency. British Sailing Team and Olympic representative and current 2020 European champion Elliot Hanson GBR is on the up comfortably winning the first race today and climbing 20 places on ranking.
Croatian now stands in Silver and Bronze, with Filip Jurisic CRO scoring his worst race so far in race one but recovering on second and keeping his chances intact after the discard applied. He's on 40 points closely followed now by his compatriot Tonci Stipanovic CRO with 46.
Immediately after them comes Joel Rodriguez ESP, who is now one step closer to qualifying his country to the Olympics, lying in 4th.
From 5th to 11th place overall we have seven already Olympic contenders, in this order: Robert Scheidt BRA 49, Philip Buhl GER 50, Jean Baptiste Bernaz FRA 57, Jesper Stalheim SWE 63, Stefano Peschiera PER 63, Charlie Buckingham 66 and Hermann Tomasgaard NOR 67.
Kaarle Tapper FIN dropped from 4th to 20th unfortunately today after scoring two really bad races.
The second Men's Olympic spot at stake is still on hands of Duko Bos NED with 75 points and placed 12th overall, but closely chased now by Belgians Wannes Van Laer BEL -he won the last race today- and William De Smet BEL, with 81 and 92 points respectively.
Milivoj Dukic MNE and Eliot Merceron SUI are also closed with 100.
Alessio Spadoni ITA, Dimitris Papadimitriou GRE, Nicolo Villa ITA, Giovanni Coccoluto ITA, Eduardo Marques POR, Finn Lynch IRL and Niels Broekhuizen NED can't be discarded, as they are all less than 50 points away of Duko.
ILCA 6
Danish sailor Anne-Marie Rindom DEN is taking all the glances after winning 5 of 8 races contested up to date and leading the championship from the beginning, now with 26 points.
Marie Barrue FRA continues to sail well, especially when bare foot! and holds the second position with 39 points. Close behind are Maud Jayet SUI 46, Monika Mikkola FIN 50, Josefin Olsson SWE 50 and Manami Doi JPN 54 on places 3rd to 6th.
Cristina Pujol ESP is ranked now on 7th overall and provisionally achieving the Spanish representation in Tokyo. She's followed 21 and 24 points behind by Fatima Reyes ESP and Martina Reino ESP. The top placed Spanish boat at this event will go to the games.
Paige Railey USA, Tuula Tenkanen FIN and Basileia Carahaliou GRE complete the provisional top ten.
All these girls could be serious contenders for winning an Olympic medal in July so good results will be key to keep them motivated and trust on their ways to Tokyo 2020.
Full results can be found here.