17 Dec 2021
Final day in Oman - Germans won the Men/Mixed Gold medal on the last race
The German team formed by Florian Krauss / Jannis Summchenn GER (2-11-2-6-15-3-10-2-2) was crowned new 2021 Youth Sailing World champion today in the 420 Men/Mixed fleet after finishing second on the last race of the championship. They were third before this trial but a misstep by both teams in front allowed them to raise the top spot for the first time in the event and get the Gold medal. This way the overnight leaders Ian Clive / Finn Dicke ESP (4-3-5-1-11-7-7-4-13) and Roi Levy / Ariel Gal ISR (14-1-1-7-1-12-9-3-16) were relegated to the second and third place, winning the Silver and Bronze medals respectively. The reigning 2021 420 Men/Mixed World Champions Tommy Sitzmann / Luke Woodworth USA could never be part of the Medals discussion due to the penalties received on the first days, but they could finally reward themselves at least by winning the last two races and finishing in the 7th place overall.
"It’s unbelievable," said Krauss. "We worked so long for this. This was our last 420 regatta, now we look at what comes next, maybe 470, maybe 49er. This year has been incredible for us. We won the German Championship. Unfortunately, the European Championship didn't go so well and so now it's incredible to win here."
The Women's Gold medal was already decided yesterday when the Spanish team formed by Neus Ballesteros / Andrea Perello ESP (3-1-3-1-3-1-4-1-2) became unreachable by the rest of the fleet, even with one race to spare. Anyhow, the new 2021 Youth Sailing World champions decided to go for more fun this morning and sailed to win again, but finally arriving second after the new Youth World Silver medalists Vanessa Lahrkamp / Katherine McNamara USA (1-9-4-2-1-14-1-4-1), the reigning 2021 420 Women's World Champions the last July in Sanremo. The French team formed by Manon Pennnaneac'h / Victoire Lerat FRA (11-2-1-3-4-3-6-9-4) also showed a great performance this week and secured the Bronze medal after finishing fourth today.
This way the 2021 Youth Sailing World Championships conclude after 5 days of competition and 9 races contested under light wind conditions of 6-10 knots.
We want to thank Oman Sail and World Sailing for such a wonderful organisation, and specially Mrs. Pinar Coskuner Genc and Mr. Nawaf Yaqoob Alghadani for their great job as Course Representative and Race Officer on Course B, where both 420 fleets enjoyed of great sailing and collected unforgetable memories during this week.
#SailSmileRepeat #Discover420sailing
Agustín Argüelles - Media Officer
International 420 Class Association
Event website: Youth Sailing World Championships.