April 23, 2019
Golden Globe Race. Afterword
Yesterday, at the congress center in the French town of Le Sable d'Olon, in the presence of several thousand spectators, the winners of the Golden Globe Around the World were given prizes, and all participants — both those who had withdrawn from the race and memorable "globes". Vladimir Snegirev reports:
Well that's all. This adventure is almost over. In total at the start in July last year there were 18 participants. Only four finished. Four boats are irretrievably lost in the ocean. Thirteen riders, for various reasons, fizzled out, sometimes under very dramatic circumstances. One – Finn Tapio Lehtinen – still continues to fight with the ocean, he is now in the Atlantic, near the equator.
I wrote “almost over,” because Tapio is on the route for now. And because our sailor Igor Zaretsky intends to continue the fight in the fall – now in the Chichester class, this is a consoling option provided by the organizers for those who were forced to make a stop at the port. Igor braked in Australia, in the marina of Albany, where doctors advised him to undergo an in-depth examination after which Zaretsky had to go to Moscow and lie down under the surgeon's knife.
It should be noted that in January-February 2018, that is, four months before the start, he underwent two more complex surgical operations. A true hero! In the fall, he will again go out into the ocean and will surely close his world globe.
In general, an amazing thing: in Le Sable all the participants of the GGR (except Tapio) arrived at the awards ceremony. One and all. It was touching – to see so many cool men together, plus one lady from Britain, Susie Goodall. Suzi enjoyed a particularly tender attention, she also got in the Southern Ocean: her yacht overturned, it was a real crash, a horrible risk.
It seemed to me that all of them – and who reached the finish line, and those who crashed – are winners. And, perhaps, the most important achievement of this race was precisely such a human unity. Alas, the organizers could not find rich sponsors, even the winner of GGR, the legendary Frenchman Jean-Luc Van Den Head, received a modest check for 5,000 pounds – that's all. But in this case, the prize was precisely the participation itself – in the race, in this extraordinary family, participation in the greatest adventure, the willingness to risk themselves in order to save others. It was all said to me – some with tears in their eyes. Because everything ever ends.
And I am also happy because I met and became friends with these guys. Fueled by such light energy.
A few photos taken yesterday and the day before. Igor with his wife Oksana and his sponsor Vasily Senatorov (head of the DublV group of companies). Silver medalist Mark Slats with Susie Goodall. Bronze medalist Uku Randmaa with her beautiful Maybi. Fourth-place Istvan Kopar and his wife Eva.
253 April 23, 2019 # 8961
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