Odile van Aanholt and Annette Duetz have secured the 2022 World Championship. The pair outdueled the Swedish challenge from Vilma Bobeck and Rebecca Netzler who took the silver.
There was only a five point gap between the protagonist teams at the start of the medal race, but the Swedish got caught out on a shift on the first beat and could never recover. Ultimately, Odile and Annette were pure class and move all the way up the fleet to third in the medal race and the overall result was never close after the first mark.
Odile won both the 2021 World and European titles, each with different crews but paired up with Annette to start the 2022 season. With this victory, Odile repeats as world champion while Annette wins her third 49erFX world title, the most of any sailor.
Bart Lambriex and Floris van der Werken (NED) have secured their second straight world title in the Olympic 49er discipline. The pair had a strong scoreline heading into the final race, making their lead mathematically insurmountable.
Attention in Sunday afternoon’s 10-boat medal race turned to the battle for silver and bronze. The outcome was uncertain until the end, but Diego Botin and Florian Trittel (ESP) did just enough to win silver with Croatian brothers Sime and Miho Fantela (CRO) grabbing the bronze in a tense fight with New Zealand and Poland.
Interview with Bart and Floris
After completing the Tokyo 2020 Olympic campaign, Lambriex went his separate ways with former crew Pim van Vugt to team up with van der Werken. They have since gone on to win the 2021 world title in Oman and now in Nova Scotia in 2022. The Dutch showed few weaknesses on St Margarets Bay, sailing incredibly consistently across a broad range of conditions. Can they go on to be as dominant as Pete Burling and Blair Tuke (NZL) who retired from 49er competition after six world titles and a gold and two silver medals at three successive Olympic Regattas? Too early to tell, and there are plenty of high quality teams breathing down their necks, not least the Spanish and Croatians who scooped the other medals in Nova Scotia.
