The bay of Palma provided on Tuesday ideal conditions for the participants of the 51st Princesa SofÃa Mallorca Olympic sailing. The sun shone in many moments and that raised the temperature and the wind descended from noon to a range of intensity slightly kinder than on Monday and at the beginning of this second day, when it still exceeded 20 knots, which allowed to fulfill the competition program and confirm the excellent reputation of the Mallorcan scene for the sport of sailing.
For the first time since March 2019, the ten Olympic classes were called, adding to those that competed yesterday (ILCA 6, ILCA 7, 470 Mixed, iQFOiL Men and iQFOiL Women) the 49er, 49erFX, Nacra 17, Formula Kite Men and Formula Kite Women, and more than a thousand sailors deployed their sails in the eight regatta areas distributed throughout the bay of Palma.
The nacra 17 class fleet, which has adopted foils to reach higher speed, sails this Tuesday in the bay of Palma
Jordi Xammar/Nora Brugman (second in 470 Mixed), Pilar Lamadrid (fourth in iQFOiL Women), Diego BotÃn/Florian Trittel (seventh in 49er) and Gisela Pulido (eighth in Formula Kite Women) are the best classified Spaniards.
The race committee decided to take advantage of the excellent conditions to organize a long test of the iQFOiL boards, which meant advancing the first start of the day to 09:00h.
Kite Formula
The first start of the new Formula Kite class served as the official debut of kitesurfing at the Princesa SofÃa Mallorca, with 76 kites in the male category and 38 in the female category on a program of four brilliant tests at speeds unprecedented in the history of this classic Olympic sailing competition.
In Formula Kite Men, the fleet was divided into three groups. After four rounds, and applied a discard, the equality is maximum at the head of the provisional, with a draw and shared lead between the Slovenian Toni Vodisek (1 + 1 + 1 + 1), and the French Benoit Gómez (1 + 1 + 1 + 1) and Theo De Ramecourt (1 + 27 + 1 + 1), current world champion of the category. The Valencian Alex Climent is 23rd after a very regular day (7+6+8+8).
In Formula Kite Women the competition began without clear mastery of any participant. Leading the standings is Britain's Ellie Aldridge (3+17+2+2), followed by compatriot Maddy Anderson (2+2+5+9) and American Daniela Moroz (1+3+7+6), absolute dominator of the class world circuit in the last five seasons. Gisela Pulido, the best-ranked Spaniard, occupies the eighth position (8+14+6+5), nine points from the podium.
The Cantabrian Diego BotÃn and the Catalan Florian Trittel compete in 49er
49er and 49erFX
The premiere of the skiff class competition program tested the crews' ability to compete in a range of winds on the edge of their safety limit.
In 49er, the French pair Erwan Fischer/Clément Pequin showed their dominance, with three wins out of three possible. They lead the class tied on points with the Germans Jakob Meggendorfer/Andreas Spranger (4+1+1) and two points ahead of the Swiss Sebastien Schneiter/Arno de Planta (2+11+2). The Cantabrian Diego BotÃn and the Catalan Florian Trittel completed a very good day (2 + 5 + 5) and are seventh, just four points from the podium.
The 49erFX session was resolved with a distribution of victories in the three rounds contested. The Dutch Odile Van Aanholt/Annette Duetz (4+1+2) were at the top of the standings, tied on points with the two-time Brazilian Olympic champions Martine Grael/Kahena Kunze (2+1+6), and followed by the Italian Carlotta Omari/Steva Carraro (1+4+9).
The Galician Patricia Suárez and the Canarian MarÃa Cantero are the best Spanish classified and occupy the fifteenth position (9 + 3 + 23).
The Galician Patricia Suárez and the Canarian MarÃa Cantero compete in 49erFX
More resources and more support
The relaunch of the Spanish team
The Mallorcan regatta has brought together 1,040 sailors from 63 countries in the bay of Palma and the Spanish fleet, with 127 athletes, accounts for more than 12% of the total. "These numbers are spectacular," emphasizes Xisco Gil, technical director of the Royal Spanish Sailing Federation. "In the last edition of this regatta Spain attended with almost 90 people; this year we are touching 130. It is an increase of about 40% over last year and means that our sailors represent 12% of the total fleet."
The joint work with the different territorial federations, the support to promising crews for the 2028 Games and the National Sports Technification Plan are the steps focused on maintaining a promising quarry to maintain the status of Spanish sailing in the Olympic medal table.
The new sports plan of the RFEV has among its priority objectives to provide more resources to all athletes who want to compete in Olympic classes. "We come from a model in which we had few Olympic crews in conditions and now we are starting to see an important mass with options to be in the top 10 for the 2028 Olympic Games," says Gil.
The regional federation that contributes the most athletes to this edition of the Princesa SofÃa is the Balearic Islands, with 53 representatives, followed by Catalonia, with 22, and the Valencian Community, with 18.
The Canary Islands are represented by 13 sailors and Galicia has eight participants. Andalusia, Murcia and Cantabria have four representatives each and Castill-La Mancha, one person.
Spain competes with 41 women divided between the four female classes and the two mixed ones. Xisco Gil points out that it is necessary to continue working in this segment: "We want the number of female licenses to grow and that by Los Angeles 2028 there will be more women who make up the Olympic team." This plan has had the support of Iberdrola, official sponsor of the women's Olympic sailing team, since the beginning of the year.
Nacra 17
The Nacra 17 premiered at the Princesa SofÃa Mallorca a new configuration of foils called to revolutionize the handling and performance of the Olympic catamaran. Several teams went out on the water with hardly any experience with this change, which will allow the boats to fly on a tight course, and with many unknowns about the performance of their rivals.
The day was resolved with three rounds and provisional lead of the Italians Ruggero Tita/ Caterina Banti (2 + 1 + 1), current Olympic champions, followed by their compatriots Gianluigi Ugolini / Maria Giubilei (1 + 4 + 3) and the Finns Sinem Kurtbay / Akseli Keskinen (3 + 2 + 2).
The Sevillian Pilar Lamadrid is fourth in the provisional classification of iQFoil Women
iQFOiL
The early risers of the day were the components of the iQFOiL flying windsurf. Summoned at 09:00h in the morning to celebrate a long regatta (13 miles), they encountered the toughest conditions of the whole day (20 to 25 knots), with victory for the British Andrew Brown in the men's category and the French Hélène Noesmoen in the women's category. After a break, they returned in the afternoon to complete two tests.
After two days and seven partials, the leader in iQFOiL Men is the Dutchman Luuc Van Opzeeland, tied on points with the British Andrew Brown and the also Dutch Amado Vrieswijk.
In iQFOiL Women, Noesmoen leads with the largest income in all of Sofia: 13 points over the Israeli Schachar Reshef and 17 over the British Isle and Watson.
The Sevillian Pilar Lamadrid occupies the fourth position, one point from the third, after scoring a sixth in the long race, a 15 and a seventh.
470 Mixed
The day of mixed 470 was resolved with two rounds that have not changed the order of the podium. The Italian tandem Giacomo Ferrari/Bianca Caruso (1+9 today) is still leading, one point ahead of Jordi Xammar/Nora Brugman (2+3). The game of discards (each team subtracts its worst result after a certain number of partials depending on the class) favors the Italians, despite the fact that the Spaniards are showing better regularity in this start of the championship. Third are Australians Nia Jerwood/Conor Nicholas (1+17).
ILCA
The ILCA played two tests on their second day. In ILCA 7, the menu of the day served Britain's Michael Beckett (1+2 today) to tie on points with Cypriot Pavlos Kontides (2+4) and position himself as the new leader. Third is Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Bernaz (2+1).
In the women's category (ILCA 6), the Canadian Sarah Douglas leads the classification after a perfect day (1 + 1) that allows her to distance herself four points from her immediate pursuer, the Hungarian Mária Érdi (11 + 5). Third is the Dutch Maxime Jonker (8+2). Cristina Pujol is the best classified Spaniard and occupies the 40th position.
Once the first two days of competition have been completed, ILCA 6, ILCA 7, 470 and iQFOiL will be divided into groups to begin defining the candidates to occupy a position in the Medal Races, which will be held from Friday.
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