Greece, Britain separating away at Laser Radial Youth Worlds

Kingston, ONT (July 29, 2019) – Conditions were fairly unexceptional all day at the 2019 Laser Radial Youth World Championships: plenty of wind, but not overpowering, with enough shifts to make things interesting. While there were a couple of oscillations that either required a moderate adjustment to the course axis, or reorienting the starting line, most of the difficulties faced by race committee today were induced by the sailors.

For the first time this regatta, the girls were really pressing the line and forced a general recall under U flag in their first start. And Gold and Silver fleets for the boys each required restarts for both races today. But it was the Bronze fleet which distinguished itself by having more than a quarter of the fleet disqualified for being over early under black flag start in their first race today.

There are a number of sailors in both the girls fleet and the boys gold fleet who are sailing consistently well to this point in the Championships.

Sophia Montgomery of Thailand has been improving day to day and has moved up to fourth in the standings. Australian Paige Caldecoat picked up two more second place finishes today to move up to third in the standings, while Ireland’s Eve McMahon had a fourth and a third to remain in second place overall.

But Matilda Nichols of Great Britain, who came into the day leading the girls fleet, enjoyed the breeze in the mid teens, sailing to victory in both races and extending her lead by another handful of points.

Emilios Monos of Greece performed almost equally well today in the Boy’s Gold fleet, winning one race and finishing second in another to reclaim the top spot in the division of the Championship. Still, Yalcin Citak from Turkey and Zac Littlewood of Australia both had finishes in the single digits in each of today’s races to stay close and keep the pressure on the leader.

DAY FOUR RESULTS:

Girls Division (Top 5 of 48; 8 races, 1 discard)
1st Matilda Nicholls GBR 21.0
2nd Eve McMahon IRL [U17] 35.0
3rd Paige Caldecoat AUS 46.0
4th Sophia Montgomery THA [U17] 68.0
5th Ece Asya Ikizler TUR 70.0

Boys Division (Top 5 of 160; 8 races, 1 discard)
1st Emilios Monos GRE 15.0
2nd Yalcin Citak TUR 21.0
3rd Zac Littlewood AUS 31.0
4th Luke Cashmore NZL 36.0
5th Tom Higgins IRL 39.0

Twelve races are planned from July 26 to 31.

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Source: ILCA