Ufficio stampa - Press office
Aline Siepmann
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E-mail albaria@albaria.com
4 - 14 Maggio 2003 - Mondello - Italy
WINDSURF OLYMPIC Board
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Ufficio stampa - Press office |
4 - 14 Maggio 2003 - Mondello - Italy |
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WINDSURF OLYMPIC Board |
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WINDSURF:
MISTRAL OLYMPIC BOARD MEN AND WOMEN
Press Release n. 9 Day 7 Stopp Press – Breaking News
Julien Bontemps and Alessandra Sensini crowned European Champion at the 2003 Mistral European Championships at Mondello, Sicily. Official top three Europeans results for the men´s Gold fleet:
1. FRA - 6 Julien Bontemps 2. FRA – 178 Nicolas Beudou 3. POR – 75 Joao Rodriguez
Official top three Europeans results for the women´s:
1. ITA – 25 Alessandra Sensini 2. FRA – 9 Faustine Merret 3. FRA – 24 Lise Vidal
Competitors from the men´s Gold and the women fleet left early this morning to the orange course at Capo Gallo. Shifty, light winds and patchy conditions promised a tough day of racing on the final day. Building swell from north west and current from northerly directions made starting even more difficult, dragging the competitors towards the pin boat. Again the pin end was favoured and we saw multiple general recalls in both man and women fleets. Joao Rodriguez (POR – 75) won the first race moving onto second European position overall as French Nicolas Boudeu ( FRA-178) came second and dropped to 3rd place with one point behind. Julien Bontemps (FRA-6) managed a 4th place and defended his first place. Italians Alessandra Sensini made the pace on the first upwind mark of the first women race followed closely by French Lise Vidal, Lee Lei Shan from Hongkong and French Faustine Merret coming 4th. Eventually Faustine Merret managed the tricky conditions best and finished first in front of Alessandra Sensini, Lee Lei Shan and Lise Vidal coming 4th. After another long pause on the water due to a wind drop, competitors started yelling and whistling at the race committee trying to enhance the decision for either another race or a cancellation. The breeze filled in again and the men were sent off at 2:30 PM for the last race of the day. Right after the start Greek Nikos Kalamanakis and French Nikolas Beudou gained and early lead. Nikos dominated the race from start to finish. Through the whole race were 4 competitors chasing Nikos, Ho Shi Ho, Julien Bontemps, Maksim Oberemkov and Nicolas Boudeu. With a second place in the final race Julien Bontemps was crowned European Champion 2003. Finishing 8th was good enough for Nicolas Boudeu to regain the silver medal as Joao Rodriguez struggled to 13th position after being locked in at the start still dropping to 3rd Europeans overall. In the second race the women´s started with a black flag / general recall which resulted in an amazing 19 competitors being rubbed out. Top mark rounding was lead by Israel´s Shiri Ron followed by German´s Amelie Lux and another Israeli Roni Shaked in third position. In the end Hongkong´s Lee Lei Shan finished with another bullet winning the Open Championship. Alessandra Sensini then crossed the finish line in second place. Taking the European Championship title. She was all smiles. Faustine Merret finishing 7th getting the silver medal, Lise Vidal made the bronze medal after coming 11th. The European Championships 2003 were extremely tough with changing conditions. Only the most consistent sailors made the top results which indicates that hard training and a will to succeed as well as sailing knowledge are the keys to superiority. Belly and me would like to thank everybody out there in e-mail land. We surely had a great week at beautiful Mondello bringing you the spills and thrills of the most amazing windsurf racing in the world. Thanks must go out to the race committee, volunteers and of course to the sailors! Mahalo Aline and Belly
RESULTS: - Nation Cup
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