Canada on the podium at 49erFX Worlds

The 2025 49er, 49erFX, and Nacra 17 World Championships were held October 7-12 in Cagliari, Italy, providing a preview for three Olympic events trialing a new format under consideration for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.

The skiff classes have become a strength for North America, and while USA teams fell short of the podium, Canadian sisters Antonia and Georgia Lewin-LaFrance won the 49erFX bronze medal to become the first-ever medalists from Canada at that competition.

The 49erFX Class was introduced in 2013 for the Olympic program at the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Games. Canada’s best previous performance was a 6th-place the Lewin-LaFrance sisters in 2021. They finished in 8th position at last year’s World Championship.

“We’re super, super excited about this bronze medal,” they said. “It was a really challenging week, and that was shown by the fact that a lot of good teams had inconsistent score lines. It’s a good step for sailing in Canada, and we’re really thankful for all the support that we receive.”

Under the new format, they earned their spot for the last day of racing called the Medal Series, as the third-place qualifier. In the first race of the day as part of the Medal Series, i.e. the Gold umpired Race, they secured their spot in the 4-point race, the fourth and last leg of the competition, by finishing third out of the 20 boats that had qualified for the Gold umpired Race.

The 4-point race was reserved for the top four teams in the standings following all races presented so far in the competition. With all points earned from previous rounds starting back at 0 at that point, the four qualified boats received the following amount of points going into the 4-point race:

• Vilma Bobeck and Ebba Berntsson from Sweden earned three points as the team in first place overall
• Paula Barcelo and Maria Cantero from Spain collected two points as the second-place team
• Antonia and Georgia Lewin-LaFrance registered one point as the third-place team
• Freya Black and Saskia Tidey from Great Britain had 0 points as the fourth-place team.

The four teams faced off in the 4-point race, where the winner of the race received four points, while no other boats earned points. The Spanish team won the 4-point race, and therefore the gold medal for the competition, thanks to a total of six points, followed by the teams from Sweden and Canada.

“I think that the new format was interesting,” said the sisters. “It was fun, and we had the perfect conditions to try it out. But I think if we had been leading the overall standings going into it, we might have felt differently. The format is really new and it will be interesting to see what other people think about it.”

Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Sailing Program:
First Week – July 16-20
Men’s Kiteboard – Formula Kite Class – Long Beach, CA
Women’s Kiteboard – Formula Kite Class – Long Beach, CA
Men’s Windsurfing – iQFOiL – Long Beach, CA
Women’s Windsurfing – iQFOiL – Long Beach, CA

Second Week – July 23-28
Men’s One Person Dinghy – ILCA 7 – Los Angeles, CA
Women’s One Person Dinghy – ILCA 6 – Los Angeles, CA
Mixed Two Person Dinghy – 470 – Los Angeles, CA
Men’s Skiff – 49er – Los Angeles, CA
Women’s Skiff – 49erFX – Los Angeles, CA
Mixed Multihull – Nacra 17 – Los Angeles, CA

Dates: July 16-28