2021 Optimist World Championship at Fraglia Vela Riva, Lake Garda – Day 1
A typical Garda Ora wind, blowing steadily from the South at approximately 12 knots of intensity, kicked off the first day of official races at the 2021 Optimist World Championship, hosted by Fraglia Vela Riva.
The nearly three hundred sailors, representing fifty-eight nations, completed the first two races of the qualification series divided into four different fleets.
To emerge in the first legs of this World Championship were the athletes of the Brazilian team who, at the end of the first race of the series, saw four out of the five members of the team positioned within the top five. There was an excellent debut also for local athletes Alex Demurtas and Lorenzo Ghirotti, respectively first and fifth in the groups to which they belong in Race 1. The other winners of the first race of the day were Fynn Olsen (USA, red fleet), Rocco Wright (Ireland, green fleet) and Alex Di Francesco Kuhl (Brazil, blue fleet).
The weather conditions remained stable during the afternoon, allowing the Race Committee to quickly start a new sequence of races and to bring to two, as scheduled, the total number of races scheduled for today.
The second race smiled at the sailors of the US team: Fynn Olsen, already North American Champion in 2021, had his second consecutive victory, followed by Gil Hackel, silver in both races today in the yellow fleet. Thanks to today’s partials, the two American athletes currently lead the ranking after the first day, leaving behind the Irish Rocco Wright, in turn on equal points with the Brazilians Alex Di Francesco Kuhl and Lucas Cochi De Freitas, with the Ukrainian Danyil Mykhailichenko and the Thai Kan Kachachuen.
2021 Optimist World Championship day 1 – photo © Matias Capizzano / www.capizzano.com
2021 Optimist World Championship day 1 – photo © Matias Capizzano / www.capizzano.com
The winners of the second race were, in addition to the aforementioned Fynn Olsen in the red fleet, Ewa Lewandowska (Poland, blue fleet), Soma Kis-Szolgyemi (Hungary, yellow fleet) and Tim Lubat (Spain, green fleet).
The first Italian sailor in the ranking is Alex Demurtas (1-8 in the yellow fleet), eleventh overall, followed by team mate Lisa Vucetti (10-3 in the red fleet), fifteenth and with the same score as Alessandro Cirinei (6-7 in the green fleet). Lorenzo Ghirotti (5-12 in the yellow fleet) is currently 26th, while Adriano Quan Cardi (46-3 in the blue fleet) is 82nd.
Races will resume tomorrow at 1.00pm, with the second day of qualifying.
The 2021 Optimist World Championship is hosted by Fraglia Vela Riva in collaboration with IODA, AICO, Riva del Garda Fierecongressi, North Lake Garda and Trentino.
At the time we are sending this press release, there are currently some protests under discussion that may affect the ranking. All the results are to be considered provisional.
All updates on the racing are being published on the Optimist World Championship 2021 website at 2021worlds.optiworld.org
