TOP THREE FINISHES PUTS SPAIN AND SWEDEN AT FRONT OF 470 WORLDS LEADERBOARD

Spain’s Silvia Mas/Patricia Cantero and Sweden’s Anton Dahlberg Dahlberg/Fredrik Bergström both posted back to back top three scores to top their respective leaderboards. Getting on the scoresheet early on is important, sets the tone and gives some margin of safety net. These two teams couldn’t be happier.

After a one hour postponement ashore, teams headed out to course area Sagami for a 1400 hours start to get the Championships’ first races underway, after yesterday was abandoned due to no wind. Light, shifty breeze and a significant wave swell on the race track made sure there was no margin for errors for the 91 teams.

Racing resumes on Tuesday 6 August at 1200 hours with 3 races scheduled for the Men and Women fleets. From race 3 the series discard comes into play, so expect all change on the leader boards.

470 WOMEN
Great Britain’s Hannah Mills demonstrated her Rio 2016 Olympic gold medal credentials by winning race 1 with crew Eildh McIntyre. They were neck and neck for a while with the Dutch pair of Afrodite Zegers/Lobke Berkhout, but overhauled them to take a convincing lead. Not such a successful race 2 left the British back in 18th to end the day in fifth place overall.

Consistency is always key and a fantastic opening day for defending silver medallists Silvia Mas/Patricia Cantero gives them leader board honours from their 3,3 scorecard.

“We had a good day in the light windwith a good start in the first race,” said Mas, “but not so good in the second one. But in the end we managed to find the spaces to go up so we are happy.”

Cantero added, “In the first race as well as a good start we also had decent speed. So we could just concentrate on being fast and sailing our own race, looking around and controlling the fleet from the front. In the second race, as we didn’t have such a good start we needed to find our spot to be able to go forwards, which we managed. In the downwind we worked very hard in the pumping conditions and it paid off. So yeh, we are very happy with how we sailed today.”

Just 5 years ago Mas was dominating the 420 Class, including winning the Youth Worlds, and now is on the cusp of becoming an Olympian. Speaking on what it will take to claim the Spanish national selection spot for Tokyo, Mas explained, “There are three regattas to be selected. It is not like mathematics, but three regattas of observation. This is the first one and then the World Cup in Enoshima later this month and then next year’s 470 Worlds, so it is a long way to go yet.”

The defending 470 Women’s World Champions, Ai Kondo Yoshida/Miho Yoshioka, were satisfied with scores of 10, 2 to end the day second overall and on tiebreak advantage over Linda Fahrni/Maja Siegenthaler of Switzerland. The Swiss, who are attempting to secure their second Olympic appearance, launched their assault to seal their names on one of the six women’s nation qualification places with solid finishes of 6,6.

Poland’s Agnieszka Skrzypulec/Jolanta Ogar steamed around the track in race 2, controlling the fleet to place a win, which together with their 13th from race 1 positions the pair in fourth overall. A strong opener from which to capture one of the six qualification places to secure their nation’s place on the Olympic start line.

Afrodite Zegers/Lobke Berkhout are contesting their first Worlds together, although separately their numerous Championship appearances make them one of the most experienced teams. Their mission here is to secure the Netherland’s place to Tokyo and they have what it takes to deliver. Berkhout earned six 470 Worlds medals over her career, five gold and one bronze, alongside Olympic silver and bronze from the 2008 and 2012 Games. Zegers has competed at eight 470 Worlds, and was a narrow one point off the Rio 2016 bronze medal.

Speaking on her return to 470 sailing after being out of the boat since London 2012, Berkhout reflected, “It is my passion and after 6 years I realized it is still in my blood and I enjoy it a lot playing with the elements again and in a really nice team. We have a lot of fun and this was really important for me that I can enjoy it again. I think we have made some big steps so far and there are a lot more steps to take, but I think we have enough time for this.”

Back ashore after racing, Zegers gave an understated, “It was hot!”

“It was quite tricky as the wind was shifting towards the right in the first race which was quite good for us actually,” Zegers said in reference to the significant gains they made on the leading British pair in the first upwind. “We sailed a very good first race, battling with Hannah and Eilidh.”

The Dutch were narrowly ahead at one stage, as Zegers acknowledged they made some errors. “There were small mistakes you make as a new team and we still need to find our ways. It was still really nice to be close and fight Hannah. I mean she is the Olympic Champion after all. The second race we had a very bad start, we were really stuck on the starboard end, and were the last boat on the waiting line.”

In respect of securing nation qualification, Zegers added, “We believe we are a good level right now. If we sail our own game by not making too big mistakes then everything is going to fall in place and we are going to win the ticket for next year. So it is not so much about focusing on boats, but more focusing day by day and still learning about the conditions here. We will just do what we know according to the conditions and stay out of trouble.”

Teams from nine different nations sit inside the top ten, a great example of the spread of talent.

470 Women - Overall after 2 Races
1. Silvia MAS DEPARES/Patricia CANTERO REINA (ESP 18) - 6 pts
2. Ai KONDO YOSHIDA/Miho YOSHIOKA (JPN 1) - 12 pts
3. Linda FAHRNI/Maja SIEGENTHALER (SUI 5) - 12 pts
4. Agnieszka SKRZYPULEC/Jolanta OGAR (POL 11) - 14 pts
5. Hannah MILLS/Eilidh MCINTYRE (GBR 1) - 19 pts
6. Mano UDAGAWA/Ayano KUDO (JPN 12) - 19 pts
7. Nia JERWOOD/Monique DEVRIES (AUS 5) - 19 pts
8. Mengxi WEI/Haiyan GAO (CHN 621) - 24 pts
9. Afrodite ZEGERS/Lobke BERKHOUT (NED 11) - 25 pts
10. Maria BOZI/Rafailina KLONARIDOU (GRE 216) - 25 pts

470 MEN
Precision teamwork from Sweden’s Anton Dahlberg Dahlberg/Fredrik Bergström in the 52 boat men’s fleet, rewarded the pair with scores of 3,2 to lead overall. The Swedes were just off the Worlds podium last year, finishing fourth, but own a silver medal from the 2017 Worlds, as well as gold and silver European Championship medals.

Second to Hungary’s Balazs Gyapjas/Zsombor Gyapjas, whose performance in race 2 marked only their second ever career win at World Championship level. Their day’s racing places them in second overall and in a strong position as the brothers attempt to claim one of the four Tokyo 2020 nation qualification places.

“Now we are really happy that finally we made a good first day,” smiled Balazs. “The last two or three events we always struggled in the first two days. Now we can be happy with our performance.

“It was close racing. We made quite a good start and then we decided to go up the left side and we were first to the first mark and just sailed at the front.”

Speaking on the Olympic qualification hunt, Zsombor said, “We are here to qualify our country to the Olympic Games. With only four spots everyone knows it is going to be super tight at the end. I hope we can achieve our goals. During the winter we trained really hard over lots of hours and lots of days and hard preparation and it has started to pay off.”

Pleasing the home fans, Japan’s Keiju Okada/Jumpei Hokazono are in third from scores of 1,2, on an 8 point tiebreak with the Hungarians. The teams in 4th and 5th also count 8 point scores, with the scoring giving the advantage to the teams holding the race wins.

“We had a great start to the regatta as we managed to finish first in the race 1 and in 7th place for race 2," said Okada. “We are focused to finish in 3rd place overall as that will guarantee we are selected for the Olympics.“

Four races for the two fleets and four different winners. China’s Jianyong Xu/Yang Wang and New Zealand’s Paul Snow-Hansen/Daniel Willcox took the day’s other wins. Whilst the Chinese followed up with an 8th to be in 6th overall, the Kiwis had already opened their account with a 24th before they reversed fortunes to seize a win. Tomorrow they can delete their worse result and catapult up the scoreboard from their 23rd overall today.

The fifty-two team are split into yellow and blue for the five race qualification series. The top 26 will then advance to gold fleet racing in the final series, with teams placed 27 to 52 racing in silver fleet. Six races in the final series will decide the top ten advancing to the double points podium deciding medal race on Friday 9 August.

The teams representing sixteen nations hoping to qualify their nation for one of the four Tokyo 2020 spots available at the Worlds know the odds are stacked up. First they have to advance to gold fleet racing and then have to regroup and attack again. Three more races are scheduled tomorrow to complete the 470 men qualification series and fine tune those nations in the running for Olympic qualification. Early days and the upcoming races will be a masterclass of sailing skills as teamwork and intelligence puts teams in contenton.

The 470 Men’s fleet has been re-seeded for tomorrow so will face a race line-up of different teams based on their leader board positions from today.

470 Men - Overall after 2 Races
1. Anton Dahlberg DAHLBERG/Fredrik BERGSTRÖM (SWE 349) - 5 pts
2. Balazs GYAPJAS/Zsombor GYAPJAS (HUN 1) - 8 pts
3. Keiju OKADA/Jumpei HOKAZONO (JPN 20) - 8 pts
4. Hippolyte MACHETTI/Sidoine DANTÈS (FRA 79) - 8 pts
5. Mathew BELCHER/Will RYAN (AUS 11) - 8 pts
6. Jianyong XU/Yang WANG (CHN 673) - 9 pts
7. Pavel SOZYKIN/Denis GRIBANOV (RUS 5) - 11 pts
8. Kevin PEPONNET/Jeremie MION (FRA 27) - 12 pts
9. Giacomo FERRARI/Giulio CALABRÒ (ITA 757) - 13 pts
10. Deniz CINAR/Ates CINAR (TUR 890) - 13 pts

HOW TO FOLLOW
Live blog, tracking, results, race reports, videos and photos will be available throughout the 470 World Championship on 2019worlds.470.org as well as updates on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The official hashtags for the Championship are: #470Worlds #470Sailing #470Life #Sail470

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ABOUT THE 2019 470 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
Enoshima, the venue for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Sailing Competition, is playing host to the 2019 470 World Championships and Olympic Qualification event from 2-9 August 2019. 182 athletes representing 29 nations are competing for Men and Women Worlds podium places and for many teams the Championship serves as a round of their national selection process for Tokyo 2020. For those nations not yet qualified for Tokyo 2020, the pressure is on to make the cut and claim one of the few remaining nation slots with 4 in the Men and 6 in the Women.