Wind fails for 470 Junior Worlds finale

Bracciano, Italy (August 26, 2018) – The French team of Hippolyte Machetti/ Sidoine Dantès successfully defended their 470 Junior World title while Italians Benedetta Di Salle/ Alessandra Dubbini claimed their second 470 Junior World Championship after 2015 Junior Worlds victory in Thessaloniki, Greece.

As the final day of the 2018 International 470 Junior World Championship, anticipation was high for the last two races but much like previous days of the event, it would prove to be another challenging outing on Lake Bracciano.

At 11:00 am all teams were on the water enjoying a nice south/east wind of 9-12 knots but the races for the Women’s Gold and Silver fleets were concluded with the wind intensity slowly fading towards the finish line to 2 knots. At the end of these races, all sailors were sent back to shore as it was time for the medal races.

Women’s medal race was scheduled for 13:00, but once more the unsteady wind conditions and a storm that was approaching fast, delayed the start for almost two hours. Women’s medal race finally started with westerly light winds but unfortunately at the second gate, just before the finish line, November flag was hoisted and race was abandoned as the time limit was over.

With just only 45 minutes of possibility of completing a race, Women’s fleet was sent back as it was the time for Men’s medal race. Nevertheless, the hope for starting the medal race for Men’s fleet died out as the wind was nowhere to be found. Therefore, no medal races were sailed for any of the fleets and results of previous races remained unchanged.

2018 470 Junior World Championship are:

Women’s division
1. Benedetta Di Salle/ Alessandra Dubbini, ITA
2. Theres Dahnke/ Birte Winkel, GER
3. Paola Amar/ Marine Riou, FRA

Men’s division
1. Hippolyte Machetti/ Sidoine Dantès, FRA
2. Giacomo Ferrari/ Giulio Calabrò, ITA
3. Balázs Gyapjas/ Zsombor Gyapjas, HUN

The top performers from North America were the USA Teams Wiley Rogers/ Jack Parkin (5th) and Madeleine Rice/ Laura Slovensky (18th).

Racing for the 79 teams representing 22 countries was held on August 21 to 26.

Event details – Results-Men – Results-Women – Facebook