After a fabulous finale to a challenging week, Jonathan Lobert of France won his first ever major title in the Finn class. Ed Wright and Ben Cornish of Great Britain, both survived the Semi-Final to meet Lobert in the Final and secured silver and bronze. Henry Wetherell made it three medals for Great Britain by winning the U23 European Championship. Arkadiy Kistanov of Russia took silver and Oskari Muhonen of Finland won the bronze.
Like the rest of the week, it was a long day with three races to get in. It started windless and with a long postponement onshore before the final race of the Opening Series could be sailed. Despite the earlier light forecast, it turned out to be one of the best races of the week, with nice waves, 10-15 knots, and sunny skies. Though the regatta leaders had already qualified for the Final, they both elected to sail the race. Anders Pedersen of Norway led all the way round for a huge win, to take the overall lead, while Lobert struggled and dropped to second overall.
Nicholas Heiner from the Netherlands, finished second, which boosted him into the top 10, while Wetherall secured the U23 title with a seventh place finish to also make the top 10. This meant that two of the three Croatians, who had all sailed an excellent week, dropped out of the top 10.
Wetherell said, “It’s really good to win the under 23 European Championships. It’s been an up and down week. I started off well, had a little dip mid-week and then had a good last race today and just managed to squeak into the top ten.”
“It was a really close race with Arkadiy. Up at the top mark it was really close and the bottom of the run we were still close and rounded opposite marks and then I had a better beat.”
On the competition. “It’s really tough. There are a lot of older guys here so it’s a real experience. Everyone knows what they are doing and everyone is quick. It’s good fun because no one ever really takes a race off. Everyone is always on their game.” |
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