Another single race day

Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic on a charge going into the medal race at the Finn Europeans

Friday March 23rd 2012, Author: James Boyd, Location: Italy

The final day of the opening series at the 2012 Finn European Championship in Scarlino again produced just one tricky race, but has set up a thrilling finale for both the Senior and the Junior Championship. Alican Kaynar (TUR) won the race, but missed out on the medal race by two points. Third placed finisher, and double Finn Junior European Champion, Ioannis Mitakis, takes the overall lead from double European Champion Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic (CRO) and Vasilij Zbogar (SLO).

After waiting afloat for more than four hours for the wind to settle and stabilise in one direction, with the committee boat moving around to try and find some wind, finally the fleet was rewarded with another shifty, light race, which again produced a lot of changes to the overall order.

The fleet got away on the second attempt under black flag with the majority of the fleet finding better breeze on the left side of the course. Ioannis Mitakis (GRE) made the best of the first upwind to lead round the top mark from Haris Papadoupoulus (CYP), Pieter Jan Postma (NED) and Alican Kaynar (TUR).

Not much changed on the first downwind, with Mitakis extending his lead and leaving the others to fight each other. However on the second upwind, both Kaynar and Papadoupoulus went further to the left, found more pressure and passed the Greek. Many front runners paid a heavy price on this leg as pressure variations played snakes and ladders with the fleet.

The top three held onto their lead on the final downwind to the finish, with Kaynar crossing just ahead of Papadoupoulus with Mitakis in third to take the overall lead of the championship.

Behind the leading group, many of the favourites were struggling. Regatta leader Flippo Baldassari (ITA) picked up a yellow flag into the finish to drop to 19th and fifth overall. Meanwhile Vasilij Zbogar (SLO) was making a massive comeback from around 30th at the first mark to 14th at the finish. Giorgio Poggi (ITA) crossed in 11th to drop to fourth overall. Zbogar ends the day in third, seven points off Mitakis.

However the biggest climber of the day was former double European Champion Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic (CRO), who placed sixth in the race to move up to second overall, just six points behind Mitakis.

Going into the medal race tomorrow, any of these five has a shot at the title. However only one of them is really experienced in medal races – Kljakovic Gaspic – so despite the points difference, he has to be a clear favourite. But he needs to be careful as he only has a five point margin on fifth place. It's going to be one of those races where the finishing order will almost define the overall positions. It's going to be fascinating.

The Junior is also heading for a thrilling finish. A mistake from leader Michal Jodlowski (POL) allowed second placed Dimitar Vangelov (BUL) to narrow the gap, but these two are assured gold and silver. The bronze is wide open after a high score from reigned Junior World Champion Arkadiy Kistanov (RUS). Any of next seven Juniors can technically win the bronze.

Jodlowski described his mistake, “I was in front of the Bulgarian and I was going in a nice shift on the second upwind and I could probably finish in the top 10, but I decided to keep covering him instead and I dropped about 30 places. I finished ahead of him because he got a yellow flag on the downwind, but I finished worse than my discard so he has narrowed the gap to 16 points. But I think today's race showed I can contain him no problem. So tomorrow I will just stick with him to make sure of it.”

At 21, this is Jodlowski's first and last chance at the title. “It is my first full year in Finn. I had a two year break from competitive sailing, but I did a couple of Polish Finn nationals and as it was my last year as a Junior decided to give this a go. I am enjoying it but I am very light at 83 kg, so we will see. I have been very lucky with the wind here this week.”

On his race win Kaynar, “On the first upwind, the starboard side was the longer tack and we took the breeze from the left side. I managed to get to the first mark in the top 10. Then I took the right side downwind and moved up to eighth at the gate. Then at the beginning on the second upwind I took the breeze again from the left and I moved to second, and then got to first at the top mark.”

Kaynar has been sailing Finns for just three years after switching from the Laser, where he was National Champion. “We have had very tricky conditions this week. But in this regatta Akif [Muslubas] and myself are really fighting hard and we are both doing well. This regatta forms 15 per cent of our Olympic trials, so it is important for us. It is a long trials from Perth to Sail for Gold. I am in front at the moment but there is a long way to go. And then of course we have to qualify the country in Falmouth.”

Mitakis has been in the Finn three years and has already qualified Greece for the Olympics. He was the Junior European Champion in both 2009 and 2010. He said, “I am really happy to be leading at this point. And the weather conditions were really difficult again so it's very good for me. I lost a couple of boats after choosing to go to the right side of the course on the second upwind but I didn't expect to be leading, so am very happy. Tomorrow we'll just have to see what will happen.”

Top 50 results:

Pos	Nat	Helm	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	Tot	Net
1	GRE	Mitakis Ioannis	13	-35	8	4	2	3	65	30
2	CRO	Gaspic Ivan Kljakovic	10	8	11	-12	1	6	48	36
3	SLO	Zbogar Vasilij	1	11	-18	1	10	14	55	37
4	ITA	Poggi Giorgio	-17	13	1	5	8	11	55	38
5	ITA	Baldassarri Filippo	8	-19	5	6	3	19	60	41
6	NED	Postma Pieter-Jan	7	6	10	18	-25	10	76	51
7	EST	Karpak Deniss	2	-38	17	10	6	18	91	53
8	ESP	Rafael Trujillo	4	1	13	-21	20	17	76	55
9	GER	Miller Matthias	9	14	6	20	-26	7	82	56
10	TUR	Muslubas Akif	18	12	15	-27	4	8	84	57
11	TUR	Kaynar Alican	16	10	24	8	-36	1	95	59
12	RUS	Skornyakov Eduard	3	7	14	-34	14	21	93	59
13	SLO	Moze Tine	-21	9	9	17	16	12	84	63
14	AUT	Raudaschl Florian	6	4	12	30	13	-50	115	65
15	RUS	Selivanov Alexey	11	22	2	9	-28	24	96	68
16	FRA	Le Breton Thomas	29	30	4	2	-33	4	102	69
17	CRO	Olujic Josip	15	20	25	3	11	(70.0 DNF)	144	74
18	UKR	Borisov Oleksiy	19	3	7	33	22	-35	119	84
19	POL	Jodlowski Michal	20	26	16	15	7	-28	112	84
20	CZE	Maier Michael	14	-34	19	19	24	15	125	91
21	SWE	Allansson Bjorn	25	2	-36	24	32	9	128	92
22	CYP	Papadoupoulus Haris	34	21	31	-38	9	2	135	97
23	ITA	Buglielli Marco	27	17	-32	25	18	13	132	100
24	BUL	Vangelov Dimitar	23	23	20	13	21	-37	137	100
25	RUS	Terpigorev Egor	5	28	29	-35	19	33	149	114
26	SLO	Vincec Gasper	(70.0 OCS)	16	3	44	51	5	189	119
27	UKR	Gusenko Andrii	41	31	-57	22	15	20	186	129
28	NED	Hagoort Timo	24	5	21	(70.0 DNF)	39	41	200	130
29	AUS	Casey Brendan	12	18	28	7	65	(70.0 DNF)	200	130
30	AUS	McMillan Rob	31	24	(70.0 DNF)	11	45	22	203	133
31	IND	Johal Nachhatar	22	-41	37	41	5	39	185	144
32	RUS	Petrov Dimitry	35	-46	27	29	12	46	195	149
33	RUS	Kistanov Arkadiy	47	29	-50	16	17	42	201	151
34	CZE	Hrncal Tomas	30	-36	35	26	31	36	194	158
35	DEN	Andresen Kaspar	42	33	30	-63	27	27	222	159
36	RUS	Yanitsky Andrey	(70.0 OCS)	15	41	51	30	26	233	163
37	LTU	Rymonis Tauras	33	42	26	-47	23	43	214	167
38	UKR	Sadchykov Anton	32	-54	22	40	40	47	235	181
39	CZE	Deutscher Patrik	44	50	-52	31	37	23	237	185
40	HUN	Haidekker Elemer	37	39	49	-64	29	32	250	186
41	RUS	Sivenkov Viacheslav	26	-61	38	39	50	34	248	187
42	POL	Wojewski Milosz	(70.0 OCS)	47	23	23	70.0 DNF	31	264	194
43	FRA	Des Beauvais Marc Allain	-54	43	46	32	35	38	248	194
44	CRO	Bilic Tudor	49	48	33	42	-52	25	249	197
45	ITA	Bucciarelli Gino	36	-64	51	36	38	40	265	201
46	TUR	Kuyumcu Efe	(70.0 OCS)	25	48	45	42	45	275	205
47	DEN	Nielsen Henrik Elmer	43	44	-47	37	41	44	256	209
48	IRL	Hamilton Ross	38	62	43	14	53	(70.0 BFD)	280	210
49	GRE	Boudouris Anastasios	56	32	42	28	-64	53	275	211
50	GRE	Davourlis Panagiotis	62	56	-64	48	34	16	280	216