| TRAVEMÜNDE, GERMANY-(8-3-2006) Some five months before the Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Peter Harry Carstensen will officially open the event, the 117th edition of the Travemünde Week gets a new Olympic boost. The 470 Internationale has allocated the organization of this year’s Junior World Championships to the Lübeck Yacht Club. They will add another highlight to the world’s second largest sailing regatta week, where more than a 1,000 boats spread across 37 classes are expected.
The allocation arrived by e-mail from Milan, Italy. Alberto Predieri, Acting President of the 470 Internationale wrote to the Lübeck Yacht Club (LYC) that the 470 Internationale had decided for Travemünde to stage the worlds. “I am sure that you will give us fantastic Junior World Championships“ it said in Predieri’s letter.
“And we are very happy about this,“ says Karin Böge, the new “Mrs. Chairwoman“ of Travemünde Week, “as the Junior worlds give yet another boost to our programme. Regarding the sports part, this coming July will see one of the most demanding Travemünde Week ever.“ Also Rüdiger Schuchardt from Essen, chairman of the German 470 Class Association is “happy that we have been able to keep the Junior Worlds in Germany after the sudden decline. With the Bay of Lübeck, we can present a truly great sailing area“.
For both athletes and organizers, the Junior Worlds will be a new experience. Never so far has the Travemünde Week hosted a 470 World Championship, “and it is for the first time that we will hold our championships as part of a large regatta week,“ explains Schuchardt. This will be especially exciting for the young sailors, “as they are not yet used to mixing with top-class sailors and to excitement of the shore programme“. Schuchardt, also head of the international jury for Travemünde Week, is convinced “that the Junior Worlds will be an excellent opportunity for promoting Germany as sailing venue“.
More than 100 boats from up to 20 nations are expected to enter the competitions with ten races plus finals (22 to 30 July) for which the 470 Internationale will be allocated their own course (Golf). “There is a lot of interest, also from overseas, especially from South America,“ says Schuchardt, who is confident about the 20 or so German boats’ chances for medal ranks.
Current European Champions Geeske Genrich and Darja Blaschkiewitz from Lübeck will not take part, though – they have outgrown the junior event. But Christopher Lorenz/Friedrich Gebert (Berlin), who became Junior European bronze medallists in Tallinn, Estonia, last year, as well as Munich-based Patrik Vollmann and Nico Lutz (fourth at the Junior Europeans) and Juliane and Claudia Wolf from Schwerin are seen as hot candidates for the top-three positions. Current Junior World Champions are Sime Fantela and Igor Marenic from Croatia. They will try to defend their title.
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