Finland’s Oskari Muhonen put on a masterclass for the 104 sailors from 20 nations taking part in the 2024 Finn Gold Cup in Aarhus, Denmark. He won all three races sailed on Friday, two by huge margins to put himself within reach of his first Finn Gold Cup win. With the discard now coming into play, Hungary’s Domonkos Nemeth moves up to second, while Italy’s Alessandro Marega is third. There is just one day left to sail.
Aarhus finally delivered the promised conditions on the fourth day with wall to wall sunshine 10-15 knots all day and three perfect races in glamour conditions. The sailors responded by being perfectly behaved on the start line and all three races got away first time.
Nemeth had his chances, and in the first race of the day, Race 5 of the championship, which was also the windiest, he led round the top and all the way round until the final downwind when Muhonen passed him just short of the gate to take the win. Lebrun started a great day with third place.
Nemeth again led in Race 6 at the top mark, with Muhonen in fifth but the Finn soon took the lead downwind and stretched out a nice lead to win again with Nemeth some way back in second and Marega in third; all three were long way ahead of the rest of the fleet.
Muhonen had the measure of the fleet in the final race of the day and rounded the top mark in first and sailed away for a huge win. Nemeth spent most of the race in second, but then on the final run, Lebrun found some extra speed and sailed past and away to cross in second, with Nemeth third.
Lebrun had the third best day with a 3-4-2 and sits in fourth place overall, just one point off the podium. He said, “Today was a tough day. We had three more races, one hour each, after spending nine hours on the water yesterday, so I think everybody must be exhausted right now. The good thing is that for the first time the wind conditions matched the forecast, and we had very good wind conditions with big waves, so I think everybody enjoyed the downwinds with some pretty good surfing conditions and I think this was the best day so far.”
Miguel Fernandez Vasco from Spain is in seventh overall and turned 40 years old today. “I got to sail on my birthday and I don’t think there is much better than this. I am so happy because I scored a 5-6-11, with 11-15 knots, which are really hard conditions for me, so I am very happy about it. I think tomorrow we will have less wind and anything can change.”
Muhonen has an eight-point lead, so needs one good race to secure the title. Nemeth has one high score, so barring disasters should secure at least silver, while bronze looks set to be decided by Marega and Lebrun, with a 23-point gap to fifth. Nemeth is the runaway leader of the Silver Cup for the U23. Points are tight for the other medals, with Jack Eickmeyer currently second and Atilla Svastits from Hungary, in third.
The 2024 Finn Gold Cup concludes on Saturday with two more races scheduled from 12.00.
Results after Day 4 (7 races)
1 FIN 8 Oskari MUHONEN 7
2 HUN 80 (U23) Domonkos NÉMETH 15
3 ITA 1103 Alessandro MAREGA 23
4 FRA 111 Valérian LEBRUN 24
5 ITA 40 Marko KOLIC 47
6 GBR 5 Cameron TWEEDLE 48
7 ESP 161 Miguel FERNÁNDEZ VASCO 51
8 NOR 5 Lars Johan BRODTKORB 52
9 GER 711 André BUDZIEN 52
10 FRA 75 Laurent HAY 59
