Universiade: our yachtsmen are sixth

Yesterday

      Universiade: our yachtsmen are sixth
      According to the website http://www.parusniy-sport.org, the final of the sailing program of the 30th World University Games ended in Naples. The final consisted of 4 races, and also the point occupied in qualification was taken into account with individual points.

The races were held directly at the embankment and next to the fortress (to the east of it) – so that viewers and television could watch the fight on the water.

As a warm-up, a small final was held among the teams that did not make it to the final. It confirmed its ninth place crew from Switzerland. The final competition began with steady wind of 10-13 knots.

In total, as already mentioned, 4 medal races were held. Each of them was very dynamic, with a change of leaders and in a very tight struggle. Quick full courses, tight rounding, false starts, penalty from the judges – all this supported the intrigue right up to the finish. In this situation, the Finnish crew with steering driver Oskari Muhonen (Finnish class) (Oscari – the winner of the Silver Cup -2017) showed themselves to be the most perfect with an almost perfect score (1-1-2-1). The second place was also confidently won by a crew from Austria (wards 2-4-1-3) with helmsman Stefan Sarnagl (Stefan SCHARNAGL), in the past – a strong world-class driver in the 470 class. The third was crew No. 2 from Singapore (steering Jilian Li ( Jillian LEE).

The Russian crew in the final races showed a good fight, there were exits to the first mark in the top three, but the team just didn’t have enough luck, some harmony and walking experience on such yachts, and somewhere – and the same level of racing experience in Olympic classes, like experienced rivals, which in the end did not allow to win the medal, but still the guys managed to keep 6th place. Behind in the final were quite strong teams in Germany and Japan, which in the last days of qualification sometimes also gave good applications for victory.

In general, assessing the performance of the Russian team, we can say that under the conditions of preparation and support for student sailing, which have developed in our country, 6th place out of 16 is a very good result. In such a difficult struggle, the guys coming to the finals at the World Universiade and further fighting on equal terms with experienced rivals, who have experience of victories in international youth regattas in Olympic classes, are worth a lot. Of course, it was difficult to fight for the gold and silver medals, but our crew showed that the fight for bronze would be quite real if the guys had a little more harmony and experience of walking on these yachts. Steering team Dmitry Tretyakov proved to be very stable from the psychological side, the crew always struggled to the last centimeter, even in the most difficult situations, when it was possible to give up, and this helped to achieve good wards and pull out a victory from rivals at the very last moment.

Congratulations to our guys with a decent result!

As for the gleaned experience from these competitions, it is obvious that success greatly depends on how the helmsmen are trained in basic dinghy classes: the Finn class comes first, then "470". This is where basic tactical, strategic, and technical skills are laid out, which further help to quickly navigate other classes. The second is the attention to the work of the crew. Each of the teams preparing for the start-ups conducted training sessions, which allowed the helmsmen to fully demonstrate their skills at a distance.

Summing up the participation of our team in the Universiade, it is important to note that not only the athletic result is important here, but also the fact that we managed to establish close contacts with teams and student sailing activists from other countries. It was possible to share and collect the experience of other countries – in what classes and in what format competitions among students are held, with delegates from World Sailing and FISU, we managed to discuss a common ideology and strategy for the development of student sails, the general format of international launches. Thus, the main idea was the development of the direction of fleet races on keel yachts in mixed crews of 4 people each. In this vein, student world championships will be held. With the representatives of the teams, we agreed to exchange information about the regattas. We are actively invited to regattas in France, Korea, and Singapore. We are waiting for next year at the student world championship in Italy. There is interest and come to us. In general, the results are significant and interesting for the further development of student sailing in our country and the strengthening of international relations.

Let's hope that this will give a big positive impetus to the development of student sailing in our country.

129 Yesterday # 9247
                                                    
      
    

Chief Editor

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