2007 IODA World Sailing Championship

Full Results: INDIVIDUAL TEAM RACING MIAMI HERALD TROPHY

Cagliari produced perhaps the most satisfactory range of sailing conditions of recent years.
Of the 13 races five were in light winds and the remainder in stronger stuff, including one race where 32 knots were recorded. The regatta was thus one of the best tests of all-round skills in a long time . . . . possibly the best since the last time we visited Sardinia.

251 sailors participated from 55 countries.
This is not a record because in 2000 to celebrate the millennium IODA sponsored entry and charter for over 20 countries and 252 sailors from 59 countries participated. But since then the IODA continental championships (see below) have grown in popularity and a further 13 countries attended only those, giving a total attending IODA events in July of 69 countries (+ four more at the IOC African Games).
Since only 50 sailors took part in more than one of these events, a total of 701 sailors represented 69 countries at IODA events during the month.

New Zealand dominated the individual results.
Chris Steele of the Wakatere B.C. near Auckland, is the 2007 Optimist World Champion, the first time the event has been won by a New Zealand sailor. Alexandra Maloney finished off a fine consistent series to take over-all bronze and the girls' prize and Logan Dunning-Beck was 9th. Not surprisingly New Zealand took the Miami Herald Trophy for best team aggregate score.
With other recent NZL Optimist results such as the silver in 2004 of Paul Snow-Hansen who last week took silver in the 29ers at the ISAF World Youth Championship, Dan Willcox, Carl Evans who had two top-20 results at Optimist Worlds and became the youngest ever 420 world champion and others, there is clearly a great group of NZL sailors reminiscent of Jim Saltonstall's "ferrets" of the early '90s.

The remaining individual medals went to Benjamin Grez of Chile (silver), and in the girls Lara Vadlau (AUT) and Rachel Lee (SIN). Julian Autenrieth (GER) concluded a fine Optimist career with a 4th place to complement his gold in 2006 and 7th in 2005.

Team Racing:
Four good sailors do not make a racing team. Greece, seeded a lowly 13th, stormed through the world Team Racing championship to take the title for the first time in the history of the event with a 2-1 win over 2006 champions Singapore in an exciting final. Ecuador in third place made it a truly inter-continental podium.

Individual performances:
A target for many sailors is to get the best ever result from their country. This was achieved by:
Previous Best
Benjamin GrezCHI2 Felipe Echenique61987
Lara VadlauAUT10 Denise Cesky331990
Ian BarrowsISV12Ian Barrows612006
Ivan ApontePUR17Ramon Gonzalez232006
Ard van AanholtAHO49Ard van Aanholt782006
Sean OttAUS103Thomas Mews1451996
Team Performances:
Austria were the surprise team of the event with not only Lara in 10th place and Benjamin Bildstein in 15th but also all its sailors in the top 100. In the Miami Herald Trophy for team aggregate performance they ranked an unprecedented fifth.
In that Trophy France came second to New Zealand, thanks in part to input from Maxime Mazard from New Caledonia and Yvan Thelier from Guadeloupe.
Italy, with coach Marcello Turchi celebrating his 25th year in that position, came third.

RESULTS:
INDIVIDUAL GIRLS TEAM
RACING 		MIAMI
Team Aggregate
1 Chris Steele NZL 1 Alexandra Maloney NZL 1 Greece 1 New Zealand
2 Benjamin Grez CHI 2 Lara Vadlau AUT 2 Singapore 2 France
3 Alexandra Maloney NZL 3 Rachel Lee SIN 3 Ecuador 3 Italy
4 Julian Autenrieth GER 4 Stephanie Zimmermann PER 4 Bermuda 4 Denmark
5 James Anfossi BER 5 Roberta Caputo ITA 5 Austria
6 Adonis Tsiboukelis GRE 5 Arianna Villena ECU 6 Ecuador
7 Sacha Pelisson FRA 7 Josephine Frederiksen DEN 7 Greece
8 Tpiadafillos Bataksias GRE 8 Maria José Cucalón ECU 8 Spain
9 Logan Dunning-Beck NZL 9 Morgan Kiss USA 9 Peru
10 Lara Vadlau AUT 10 Marlena Fauer USA 10 Singapore

Full Results: INDIVIDUAL TEAM RACING MIAMI HERALD TROPHY