| EL ARENAL, SPAIN-(18-4-2004) Santiago Lange and Carlos Espinola are the 2004 World Champions
Francois Gabart and Romain David are the 2004 Youth World Champions
Russia, Portugal, Canada and Brazil qualified for the Olympics
White horses could be seen filling the bay of Mallorca since early this morning. The Southwest was blowing 16-18 knots and increasing.
Competitors entered the last day of the Worlds fighting for a World Title, a country Olympic qualification or a country Olympic nomination. They knew that today’s two races were crucial and a lot was expected from them.
The start of Race 9 was given at 12h24 with 20 knots of wind, 1 General Recall and a clear start after that. The bulk of the fleet chose the left hand side and it proved to be the right direction to go. The wind strength increased (22-23 knots) as well as the swells and more than 15 boats did not finish the race due to the rough conditions and broken parts.
British Olympic representative Leigh McMillan/Mark Bulkeley won the race followed by French team Olivier Backes/Laurent Voiron and Spanish Fernando Echavarri/Anton Paz in third. Echavarri and Paz will sail in Athens. The French nomination has not been decided yet.
Race 10 was cancelled before starting: the wind was blowing more than 25 knots.
Santiago Lange and Carlos Espinola won the World Title 11 points ahead of the second, Americans John Lovell and Charlie Ogletree. Australians Darren Bundock and John Forbes finished the event in third.
“Winning is the result of hard work and much training, dedication, focus. It was our biggest dream: to win a World Championship in an Olympic class. You can not imagine how happy we are!”, said Champions Lange and Espinola.
The 2004 Youth World Champions are French Francois Gabart and David Romain that managed excellent results in such a high level Regatta. They finished 21st overall.
“Now we are going to sail the rest of the season even more motivated. We are very happy with our results”, told Gabart and Romain.
Not a good day for Slovenians Dusan Puh/Alan Biderman that capsized and not finishing cost them an Olympic qualification. New Zealanders Aaron McIntosh/Mark Kennedy also lost the qualification, finishing 6 points behind the Brazilians Mauricio Santa Cruz and Kiko Pelicano.
The Portuguese team of Diego Cayolla and Nuno Barreto, 15th overall, won the Portuguese selection and they are going to represent the country in the Olympics. Their fellow countrymen Hugo Rocha and Luis Brito finished 19th.
The Russians Andrey Kirilyuk and Valery Ushkov, 10th overall, qualified the country and are probably going to be the country’s representative.
Club El Arenal is hosting the Prize Giving Ceremony tonight, in time for most of the sailors to catch the ferry to Barcelona later and continue the journey to the French Olympic week in Hyeres. The training for the Olympics has not finished
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