RIO 2016: The road returns to Europe

Palma, Spain (April 3, 2013) – The 44th Trofeo Princesa Sofia Mapfre, ISAF Sailing World Cup Palma regatta, saw the conclusion of the qualification series after three days of racing in the bay of Palma. After two days of strong winds, more moderate conditions prevailed today.

Renee Groeneveld and Karel Begemann (NED) are leading the Nacra 17 fleet with consistent results and have yet to win a race. Like many other teams, now with the elimination of the match racing event, it is the result of mixing multihull skills with match-racing experience.

“I’ve come out of match racing,” said Groeneveld at the helm, “so I’m really new to cat sailing so everything on the cat with the foils has meant we’ve done a lot of training here in Palma from December onwards.”

On their consistent performance in Palma Begemann explained, “On Tuesday we didn’t have a bad day but we did have a few bad starts, so our focus today was to have some good starts. And the first two races today were pretty much perfect but in the last one we were a little bit unlucky with someone coming from over the line a little bit low and giving us some bad wind but we ended up fourth so it was okay.”

Competitors now take their qualifying ranking as a single race score, and will proceed forward into the final series on Thursday and Friday, with the top ten competing in the medal round on Saturday. – Full report

STANDINGS: American Caleb Paine (Finn, 9th) busted through the female monopoly, now joining the top-ten club as the only male North American. Female helms leading the charge are Canadian Isabella Bertold (Radial, 10th) and Americans Anne Haeger/ Briana Provancha (470, 9th), Sarah Newberry/ John Casey (Nacra 17, 10th), and Farrah Hall (RS:X, 10th). – Results

USA report: http://sailingteams.ussailing.org/News/2013/D3_SWC_Palma.htm

BACKGROUND: The ISAF Sailing World Cup Palma (Apr 1-6) is the third of four events for the 2012-13 ISAF Sailing World Cup season. The season began in Melbourne, Australia (Dec 2-8) and was in Miami (Jan 28-Feb 2), with the final event in Hyeres, France (Apr 20-27). The ISAF Sailing World Cup is open to the sailing classes (equipment) chosen for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Sailing Competitions.