Antonia and Georgia Lewin-LaFrance in 2nd place with one day to go at the first Grand Slam regatta

Georgia Lewin-LaFrance Antonia Lewin-LaFrance (CAN 71), 49er FX - 55th Trofeo Princesa Sofia Mallorca by FERGUS Hotels - Day 5 © Sailing Energy / Princesa Sofía Mallorca

Canadian sailors Antonia and Georgia Lewin-LaFrance are in second place heading into the final day of the first Grand Slam regatta of the season, the Princess Sofia Trophy, which ends on Saturday in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

The Canadian team finished the 14 races from the Qualifying Series in second place with 36 points. They are just one point behind the leaders, Paula Barcelo and Maria Cantero of Spain, and one point ahead of the German duo of Sophie Steinlein and Catherine Bertelheimer, in third place with 38 points.

On Saturday, the final day of the regatta, the top 10 teams from the Qualifying Series will compete in two final races. They will enter that phase with the net points they have accumulated so far, minus those from their worst performance, which amounts to 36 points for Antonia and Georgia Lewin-LaFrance. The points from their last two races on Saturday's schedule will be added to that total.

The first race is scheduled for 7:30am (Toronto time) on Saturday.

"It feels really nice coming into the first event of 2026 to be in this position," said Antonia and Georgia Lewin-LaFrance about being second before the Final Series. "It has not been a typical Palma. We've had offshore conditions the whole week, which is something we don't consider to be our strongest condition, but we're really happy that we've managed to be consistent as a team."

"Saturday is the last day of racing. We just have the medal races, so only the top 10 boats, but it's a new medal race format that no one has ever done before. Basically, we'll have two races instead of one and the points have been condensed a little bit going into those two races, so everyone in the top 10 has a mathematical chance at the podium. We're going in as the second-place team, one point behind the leaders, and third place is one point behind us, so it should be pretty entertaining. I think anything can happen and the forecast is looking more like a classic Palma sea breeze, so it will be different than what we've been racing this week, which will also be interesting."

A new competition format

The Princess Sofia Trophy regatta features a new competition format this year, including the Qualifying and Final Series.

In the Qualifying Series, athletes first compete in preliminary races and aim to avoid the cut in order to qualify for the Gold Fleet in the elimination races—the only way to end up on the podium. The others compete in the silver or bronze fleets depending on their ranking.

Except in the iQFoil and Formula Kite classes, athletes then begin the Elimination Series with a point total corresponding to their ranking following the preliminary races. The top 10 athletes following the qualification series, which includes both the preliminary and elimination races, qualify for the final series day, which features two races. The final ranking is determined by the total net points accumulated during the qualification series, to which the points from the two final series are added.

Two ILCA 7 sailors in the Gold Fleet

Two other Canadian sailors qualified for the Gold Fleet: Ryan Anderson of Halifax and James Juhasz of Oakville, Ontario, in the ILCA 7 class. They finished the preliminary rounds in 40th and 44th place, respectively, and unfortunately did not advance to the Final Series.

A total of 15 Canadians competed in the 2026 Princess Sofia Trophy regatta, the first of five Olympic class regattas to be held in 2026 as part of the Grand Slam series, and which marked the first major competition of the season.

More than 1,100 sailors were in action at the 2026 Princess Sofia Trophy Regatta, including 93 % of the medalists from last year's various World Championships and 52% of the medalists from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in the 10 Olympic classes presented.

The four other regattas that will be part of the Grand Slam Series this year are French Olympic Week (April 18-25), Dutch Water Week (May 30-June 7), Kiel Week (June 20-28) as well as the Long Beach and San Pedro Olympic Classes Regatta (OCR) (July 13-August 8).