Charlotte Rose closes strong at Laser Radial Youth Worlds

Medemblik, Netherlands (August 18, 2017) – The 2017 Laser Radial Youth World Championships concluded today in the strongest winds of the series, testing competitors in a steady 15 knots with gusts of about 18-20 knots. All six fleets completed two races today, triggering the second discard to impact the standings.

In the girls division, the story was the comeback of USA’s Charlotte rose who posted all top 2 scores in the final five races. After finishing the qualifying series in 8th, which was marked by light winds, her performance improved with the heavier winds to climb up the rank in the finals series.

In the first race, Rose again sailed away from the fleet on the first downwind leg and never looked back on her way to the win.

But the real battle in this race was for third place where regatta leader Hannah Anderssohn of Germany and Dolores Moreira Fraschini from Uruguay, who were separated by only four points, each had their eye on taking overall lead. In the end Anderssohn just snuck ahead of Fraschini at the finish to widen her overall lead to 5 points going into the last race.

In the final girls race, Fraschini, needing to put five boats in between herself and Anderssohn, sailed a brilliant race and had to hope that Anderssohn would finish back in the fleet. But it was not to be as Anderssohn, Rose and Fraschini all showed excellent speed in the hiking conditions to separate ahead of the fleet in the fresh breeze.

Fraschini hit the shifts perfectly upwind to sail to an easy win, followed by Rose and Anderssohn, who cruised to a conservative fourth place finish in the race, which was enough to close out the event and secure a prestigious Laser World Championship title for the young German. Fraschini finished second overall and Rose rounded out the podium in third place overall.

The stronger winds that launched new leaders up the standings yesterday continued to do the same today in the boys division. Dimitris Papadimitriou of Greece, who was not ranked in the top 10 heading in to the Final Series, began pulling himself to the front with a 3rd and 4th yesterday in gold fleet, and another incredible performance in today’s racing.

With a 2nd place finish in the first race behind Spain’s Rafael De La Hoz Tuells, Papadimitriou moved into a tie for first place overall with Argentina’s Matias Dietrich heading in to the final race of the day. But in the final race, Dietrich finished with a 33rd as Papadimitriou sailed his best race of the Championship leading the fleet by a substantial distance to the finish.

Dietrich dropped to a three-way tie for second place overall, with Nicholas Bezy from Hong Kong and New Zealand’s Josh Armit each with 59 points.

Leading the way for North America in boys was Joseph Hou (USA) in 15th.

With that, Dimitris Papadimitriou and Hannah Anderssohn are named the 2017 Laser Radial Youth World Champions, with the Under 17 titles going to Josh Armit (NZL) and Matilda Nicholls (GBR).

Forty-six countries were represented in the field of 379 sailors (273 boys, 106 girls) from 15 to 18 years of age which competed from August 13 to 18.

Boys Gold Fleet results (Top 10 of 69; 11 races, 2 discards)
1. Dimitris Papadimitriou GRE 32pts
2. Matias Dietrich ARG 59pts
3. Nicholas Bezy HKG 59pts
4. Josh Armit NZL 59pts
5. Alexandre Boite FRA 70pts6. Yoshihiro Suzuki JPN 71pts
6. Yoshihiro Suzuki JPN 71pts
7. Jimmy Marchand FRA 88pts
8. Guido Gallinaro ITA 100pts
9. Gregoire Peverelli SUI 100pts
10. Zac Littlewood AUS 100pts

Girls Gold Fleet results (Top 10 of 53; 11 races, 2 discards)
1. Hannah Anderssohn GER 25pts
2. Dolores Moreira Fraschini URU 27pts
3. Charlotte Rose USA 37pts
4. Emma Savelon NED 56pts
5. Laura Schewe GER 57pts
6. Valeria Lomatchenko RUS 76pts
7. Julia Buesselberg GER 79pts
8. Wiktoria Goleblowska POL 80pts
9. Daisy Collingridge GBR 83pts
10. Matilda Nicholls GBR 84pts

Event details – Results – Facebook

Source: International Laser Class Association