Great conditions on closing day of SPLIT OLYMPIC SAILING WEEK 2010 ! Southeasterly averaging arround 17 knots made everybody happy - 100 boats were "flying" with the wind on sailing area "Bravo". Race committee has send the fleet afloat earlier today arround 9 o'clock and racing has started as planned one hour later.

While some of the favourites in 470 and RS-X have secured their leading position even before the final day of the event, top Finn and Laser sailors had to "fight" until the finish line.

 

After 6 races, three being held on Saturday, and again last three copmleted on Sunday, International regatta "Split Olympic Sailing Week" has finished. In spite of lack of wind for the first two days in a row, thanks to perfect conditions and good management race has been sucesfully completed. We had to wait for the last race to find out the winners in three classes with larger number of competitors.

Among 38 competitors from Croatia, Austria, Slovenia, Poland, Russia, Monaco, France, Italy and Hungary in Laser the best overall is Milan Vujasinović (YC Labud, Split) with four bullets , second and fourth place. četiri prva i po jednim 2. i 4. mjestom. Tonči Stipanović (JK Mornar, Split) has secured the second place when he has won 5th race.. Aron Lolić ( Labud), Danijel Mihelić (Galeb, Kostrena) and Andreas Geritzer(AUT), silver medalist from Athens 2004, were fighting for the third place.

In Laser radial, world vicechampion, Sophie de Turckheim from France was behind european champion Tina Mihelić (Labud) in first two races, but hten she scored first place in races 3,4 and 5. Before last race only a point has separated those two with Nenad Bugarina (Val, Crikvenica) three points behind Sophie.

Even without current European champion in Finn class, Ivan Kljaković-Gašpić from Split (he did not compete due to illness) there has been a lot of action and exciting moments. Mate Arapov (JK Mornar), one of the best Croatian sailors ever in the Laser clas has been racing in the Finn class for the first time and has shown outstanding performance in the borrowed boat. After three races Arapov was leading , then has won the race four and couple of minutes later he has found his name on the OCS board. In race five he was second after Marin MIšura and they had equal number of points before the final race. MIšura has finished in great style wining the final race. Some great sailors from Finn class like Rafal Szukiel or Eduard Skornyakov were outperformed by Arapov. It will quite interesting if he continues in Finn especialy with Finn European championship beeing organised in May in Split by YC Labud. (Mate is sailing in Star clas lately).
470 hase been dominated by Slovenian sailors. Tina Mrak and Teja Černe (Pirat, Portorož) were leading on Saturday,while Mitja Mikulin i Sebastian Prinčić (JK Burja) were donating on Sunday. Current European and World champions Šime Fantela and Igor Marenić from Croatia did not compete this time in SOSW.
RS:X was dominated by local sailor Luka Mratović (Mornar) followed by Mihovil Fantela (Sv. Krševan, Zadar).

 

Short interviews:

KARLO KURET
Race director
At the end we have to be satisfied after two days in a row with no wind at all. Finally there southeasterly wind has started and it was quite easy to produce races in last two days. No wind, no race...Organising committee has done a great job and we have to be pleased with SOSW 2010. Local top sailors have shown once again that they among the best sailors in olimypic dinghies.


MILAN VUJASINOVIĆ
JK LABUD
I love this conditions with strong wind espeacialy on the run. I've made some mistakes especialy in race 4 and 5 , but I was using mistakes from my oponents as well. I 've secured the overal victory before the ultimate race so I was quite relaxed. This my third victory on SOSW in Laser class. I'm very happy with oragnization and competition.


MARIN MIŠURA
JK SPLIT
There has been a non stop battle against Mate Arapov who has been a great surpise for all FInn sailors here . Mate is not phisically perfect for Finn dinghy but we all know him as a great sailor and luckily for me he has been tired in last race. After a long while I've performed well and I was sailing better aech race.


SOPHIE DE TURCKHEIM
FRANCE
I'm very tired and very happy. We had a lot of wind and lot of fun on the water, definitely I've had a good traning . I performed much better today even though I need to work on tehcnical performance. Still we had quite a strong wind today... I beleive my program will include this event next year again. Congratulations to organisers.

 

TEJA ČERNE
SLOVENIA
We were sailing wery well in past two days and I'm very pleased with second place overall .