“Great joy to ride through the winter!”

February 15, 20203min read

Yesterday

Those who regularly visit our Facebook page already know about the success of Russian athletes at the WISSA 2020 World Winter Sailing Championships. But here are additional details from the press service of the Sailing Academy of the St. Petersburg Yacht Club.

“Great joy to ride through the winter!”

In the waters of the Finnish lake Lestiyarvi, the WISSA 2020 World Championship ended on February 14. Initially, Estonia was supposed to take the regatta, but due to the fact that winter did not arrive in most of Northern Europe, it was decided to transfer the competition to the northern Finnish town of Lestiyarvi.

The organizers have created the almost impossible. For some two weeks after the decision to postpone the World Cup, they managed to prepare an event of international scale. The competition was attended by 100 riders from 12 countries.

For four days, the athletes managed to race in different weather conditions. Coverage on Lake Lestiyarvi changed almost every day: from ice to bare ice and ice with water.

The main feature of the WISSA World Championship is the union of any structures that use wind energy to move (with the exception of boers). The main program of the event traditionally includes winter windsurfing, snowkiting and wings. The main discipline – course-flight – racing with movement in the wind and under the wind, where Russian racers are traditionally strong. The course flight is carried out for all classes by a series of races (7 – 15 starts in a series).

In the course-skiing – skiing class, Nikita Kodanev, an athlete at the Academy of Sailing and Krestovsky Island, won. In 15 races, he did not fall below the second line and earned 16.9 points. A stubborn struggle was imposed on him by another Academy driver Roman Lyubimtsev, who lost less than three points to Nikita.

“The last races turned out to be quite tense, because there was a very small difference in points between the leaders,” says Nikita Kodanev. – All the guys chased cool. Many thanks to the organizers for being able to reschedule and organize the competition in a short time. Finland had very good conditions, both in terms of organization and weather conditions. Four racing days were cool, fun and interesting. ”

Among the women, the best athlete was the Academy athlete Elena Kalinina. In the overall standings, she took seventh place.

In the course-snowboard class, the snowboard fight lasted until the very last race. The fate of the gold medal was decided in the full-time struggle between the racers of the Academy and Krestovsky Island – Nikita Sokolov and Valeria Garashchenko. In the standings, athletes shared only 2.6 points.

“After the first race day, I went second, so I had an incentive to rehabilitate,” says “academician” Nikita Sokolov. – Fortunately, I was able to eliminate equipment problems. In the following days, I worked as much as possible and fought for first place. The fight for victory continued until the very last race. "

“The water area in Finland is very interesting,” says Valeria Garashchenko. – We went to the race on almost all of our sizes: 11, 15, 18, 21's. Coverage changed every day: snow, ice, ice with water, present. We were happy to race here. I recently returned from a three-week training camp in Spain. It’s a great joy for me to finally see the snow and ride through the winter. ”

Philip Kovalev,

Press Service of the Academy of Sailing.

39 Yesterday # 9906

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