57th French Olympic Week in Hyères - Day 1
by Fédération Française de Voile 20 Apr 12:38 PDT
18-25 April 2026
57th French Olympic Week in Hyères - Day 1 © Sailing Energy / French Olympic Week Hyères - TPM
The 57th edition of La Semaine Olympique Française de Hyères - TPM (France's Olympic sailing week) began on Monday in Champagne Côte d'Azur conditions as 705 competitors from 59 nations started six days of racing.
There was chess on the water, philosophy in the kites, and Italian profits, on day that separated the best from the rest, but still left many of the best in its wake. There were Italians in podium places wherever they were racing throughout the fleet, led by their returning-from-retirement-like-they-have-been-away double Olympic champions, Ruggero Tita & Caterina Banti in the Nacra 17.
The rich kept on getting richer and the rest needed to be philosophical as the Bay of Hyères was bathed in unending sunshine and fanned by light southerlies.
Some managed a bit of both. USA's Ian MacDiarmid, making a strong opening defence to his and team mate Nevin Snow's 49er title called it "Champagne sailing...and like playing chess while running."
Champion teenager and kiting king, Maximilian Maeder from Singapore revealed he was seeing Hyères, and kiting, with new eyes, under the influence of his new French coach, Matthieu Girolet. "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change," Maeder said. If Marcel Proust had been a kiteboarder he could not seen deeper, thought he probably would not have had time to write À la recherche du temps perdu. Maeder's family will not be entirely surprised; "I do have a Chinese philosopher name," he said. "I have a Chinese name, and it's after a Chinese philosopher. I have a full name in English, and I have a full name in Chinese. [Continued below in Men's Formula Kite below].
ILCA 6 and 7 - (women's & men's solo dinghy)
The biggest fleet of boats in the regatta with 136 ILCA 7 and 84 ILCA 6.
ILCA 6
On a day when a fleet of old favourites struggled, fresh from her victory in Palma, Ireland's Eve McMahon (1, 1) kept up her winning ways with a perfect day 1, recording victories in both races win blue fleet. She leads overall from Switzerland's Rosine Bauret (5, 1) in second, and Italy's SOF 2025 champion, Chiara Beninin Floriani (1, 6) in third, after both won a race in yellow fleet.
ILCA 7
Britain's Michael Beckett leads the largest fleet after a perfect day saw him both races in yellow fleet. His compatriot, Elliot Hanson, who beat Beckett into third in Palma, is third overall after a 1, 2 in red fleet after trading blows with Hungary's Jonatan Vadnai, who lies second. After a year out,
Australia's double Olympic champion, Matt Wearn (BFD, 4), who beat both Brits to top the Palma podium, finds himself in the unusual position of 72nd. But that is only because of a Black Flag Disqualification in race one for crossing the start line early - perhaps keen to assert his dominance in red fleet.
Michael Beckett (GBR)
"The weather was lovely! It's warm, quite light on our course, Foxtrot, near to Île de Porquerolles We're quite far south there and generally on the right side of the course it's very light and on the left a bit better, but it was a really tricky day, a tricky game of chess. But I'm happy, I think I won both races.
Generally good starts, and the top of the first leg was quite tricky and from the first leg it spread out. I was first to the mark in the first race and fourth in the second race, so that made it much easier. Lorenzo here was catching up and doing a really good job but that's much harder. Very happy (for the first day).
(The level of the Ilca 7 fleet) is incredibly high, it's hard to imagine it being much higher, everybody here has so much experience, particularly in the top 10. There's a lot people, perhaps five here, who have won this regatta before, everybody has done multiple Olympics, there is nobody that new in the top 10 so it's incredibly tough. It's incredibly good racing, very rewarding, but it's so brutal, it's so easy to make a mistake and then you have another 150 guys there.
I've done this regatta 10 times, it was my first ever senior regatta, when I was 18, I took a week off school, flew here, stayed on the beach with no money, came bottom 10, nearly last. Now I'm 31, with a lot more experience, I've finished first, second and third here in the last five year. I really like Hyères, it's always good sailing, always challenging, it's a nice place.
My coach always says Hyères is here to make weather forecasters look stupid, if you do the forecasting here you're probably going to be wrong, it's not simple, it's complex; you've got the southwesterlies, the easterlies, offshore, there's a lot going on!"
Formula Kite (men's and women's kite)
Women
Local favourite, Lauriane Nolot, Paris 2024 Olympic silver medallist, winner in Palma 2026, and a winner in her home waters at SOF 2023, (1, 1, 2, 23 (DNC)) was in the overall lead despite not starting the last race. Israel's Gal Zukerman (6, 2, 3, 1) lies in second after a strong finish to the day ahead of China's Si Wang (2, 4, 4, 16) and Britain's Lily Young (7, 3, 8, 2). SOF 2025 champion, China's Wan Li is back in 11th after a consistently difficult day (11, 9, 7, 14).
Men
The podium after day 1 looks very similar to the end of SOF 2025. With the fleet of 44 racers split into two fleets, Italy's Riccardo Pianosi, the SOF 2025 champion finished day still at the top of the leaderboard after finishing with three victories in his four races (2, 1, 1, 1) in blue group.
Pianosi leads perennial rival, the 19-year-old Singaporean, Maximilian Maeder, the world number one fresh from a fourth consecutive title in Palma (where he beat Pianosi into silver), scored (1, 1, 2, 2) in yellow group.
But Maeder, second last year, is third overall and second in yellow group to Switzerland's 18-year-old Gian Stragiotti, third in SOF 2025, who finished the day strongly after it went light (2, 7, 1, 1).
Maximilian Maeder (SGP)
"Day one has, I would say, gone well! There, there can be way worse things that happen on day one. There were no incidents, no crashes, no nothing - just clean racing. I think I can't ask for much more, really. I delivered what I had to and everything remains open for the next couple of days, because everyone is so close together, it's exciting for the rest of the weekend.
In the middle after the third race we had a huge shift, and it went quite light. We had to wait around for around 40 minutes.
Because we're on foils, we basically didn't have to do anything with the sea-state, because to us, it was mirror flat. The more you are familiar with the spot, the more you see patterns, and so it becomes a game of who recognises the patterns the best and and who delivers the most clean writing, because for our class, it's a lot about speed. Once you see the pattern, then bring the speed.
I would say that I've gained more pattern recognition, but that's only because I've made a recent coaching change around 9-10 months ago (now with France's Matthieu Girolet), where I really delved more into the sailing aspect of Formula Kite. Because earlier it was a lot about, since it's quite a unique class, a lot about using the speed, making sure I'm able to use the speed and building speed, but now it's a lot more about sailing with the new coach.
Now that's why I've noticed that there's more patterns that I can recognise because I've worked together with him, not because of the past four years that I've been here. It is a new Hyères for me because of the way I see things. If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
49er (men's and women's double-handed skiff)
Women's FX
Italy's duo of Sofia Giunchiglia & Giulia Schio (1, 2, 2) lead after their consistent excellence paid off as all around them struggled in the lighter airs. Their closest challengers, China's Yingqian Wang & Xiaoya Su (2, 5, 18) were badly off the pace in the final race, but kept second overall with their discard. Estonia's Helen Pais and Helen Ausman lie third in an open field.
Men's 49er
A strong day for the USA in the men's skiff, as Andrew Molleurs & Trevor Bornarth (2, 1, 5) lead overall after consistently staying in the lead group of yellow fleet with fellow Americans and SOF 2025 SOF champions, Nevin Snow & Ian MacDiarmid (4, 2, 4).
Ireland's Robert Dickson & Sean Waddilove, fourth at the Paris 2024 Olympics, were second overall, racing at the front of blue fleet from the start (1, 2, 5). The New Zealand duo of Sam Bacon & Blake McGlashan are third after their day in yellow fleet got better and better (5, 3, 1).
Robert Dickson / Sean Waddilove (IRL)
"We just wanted to keep it really clear on the start, get off the line. And then just keep the eyes out for the next bit of pressure.
We basically just implemented what worked in the first race. Because we couldn't see many changes, so we said, okay, we'll do the same thing again. It seemed to be similar people in the top group all the time. The lighter teams were probably able to get away a bit more on the startline and even without a gap, they can really get away with stuff.
It seems like the racing has definitely got a bit tighter this (Olympic) cycle. Once everyone comes back fully after time off after the game and everyone gets back into the groove of things we'll have a good idea what the people like. The good thing is in the 49er is a lot of the sailors participate in the SailGP as well and sail the he 49ers when they can. When it gets close to the games, everyone focusses back on the Olympics."
Ian MacDiarmid (USA)
"It's awesome Hyères. We love it. We spend a lot of time in Europe, but here is pretty great. The conditions are sweet, today was Champagne sailing. It's a little weird because it's either super flat or when you get this sort of southeast, easterly, it can be really choppy like today. That chop can be really hard. This doesn't sound like it's that revolutionary, but there are places where the venue just demands more out of you. You have to sail right on the margins, and the margins meaning all the way.
Hyères really pushes you on that. You have to sail the heck out of the boat and you can't sort of baby it at all, but you have to be really on it. You can burn yourself pretty easily. It's just a tough spot. It demands a lot from the sailing boat, how you handle the boat. And then there's days where you get shifty days and it's like playing chess while running."
Nacra 17 (mixed double-handed catamaran)
Italy's double Olympic champions, Ruggero Tita & Caterina Banti showed no sign of rust after coming out of retirement in March and finished day 1 in their customary place - on top. Finishing 2, 2, 1 in the three races of the day, put them ahead of their old rivals and training partners, Britain's John Gimson & Anna Burnett, the SOF 2025 champions. Everyone other duo struggled in the lighter airs, but showing the quality of Italy's Nacra programme, Federico Figlia di Granara and Caterina Sedmak (3, 4, 17) are third overall. The Italian pair who lost out to Tita / Banti on the last Olympic cycle and were second at SOF 2025, Gianluigi Ugolini & Maria Giubilei, are 11th (10, 7, 10).
Ruggero Tita (ITA)
"Today was quite complicated. We waited a bit, the wind dropped, but in the end we had three good races, in medium to light winds. It's the first day, we're off, and we're off to a good start! I haven't been in this fleet for a long time, even though we've won quite a few regattas before, but that was a long time ago. Today is a restart. I'm rediscovering the level of competition in the Nacra 17 fleet. We're observing and doing the best we can."
iQFOiL (men's & women's windsurfing)
Women
On day when all the fleet enjoyed their discards, Estonia's Emma Viktoria Millend (11, 3, 1, 1) leads from Israel's Shahar Tibi (17, 3, 3, 5) and Italy's Marta Maggetti, who is fresh from her second place in Palma.
Men
Two wins from their three races took China's 2025 SOF champion, Kun Bi (1, 7, 1) to the top of the leaderboard ahead of Italy's Federico Alan Pilloni (1, 23, 1) and in joint third France's Louis Pignolet (3, 1, 3) and the equally consistent Italian, Nicolo Renna (3, 1, 3).
470 (mixed double-handed dinghy)
More Italian dominance in the light as Elena Berta & Giulio Calabro' (3, 1, 10) lead overall and their consistent compatriots, Giacomo Ferrari & Alessandra Dubbini (4, 3, 7) are third. Between are Britain's Martin Wrigley & Bettine Harris (23, 5, 2), who were second in Palma. But like the rest of the high calibre field they already have a big discard.