Martin Billoch, Optimist World champion 1974, and
Santiago Lange. Both went on to the Olympics.

• EX-OPTIMISTS
• Topic:
• Oct 28, 2011
• Date of Publication:

PAN-AMERICAN GAMES

Mexico

Lots of medals to ex-Optimist sailors.

The recently concluded Pan American Games saw former Optimist sailors achieve a host of medals.

In the Laser Class all six medals went to ex-Optimists. Julio Alsogaray (ARG), gold in the men's event, had taken bronze in the Optimist Worlds of 1994, Guatemala's Juan I. Maegli and Tania Elias Calles (MEX) were former Optimist Worlds participants while Cecilia Carranza Saroli (ARG), Matias del Solar (CHI) and Paige Railey (USA) had also sailed the boat.

But results were not confined to the Olympic Laser Class. Sunfish Class victor Matheus Dellagnello (BRA) had placed 4th in the 2001 IODA Worlds, and bronze medallist Francisco Renna (ARG) was member of the 2003 and 2005 World Team Race winning teams. In the Hobies 16-year old Optimist Worlds veteran Victor Aponte crewed to gold for the legendary Enrique Figueroa (PUR) while bronze medallist Jason Hess was another of the first generation of Guatemalan Optimist sailors (GUA 6 at the millennium Worlds!).

Even in the J/24s winner Mauricio Oliveira (BRA), better known as a Tornado Class Olympian, had also sailed Optimists almost a quarter of a century ago.

In the photos below: Julio Alsogaray.

Before... 1988

After... 2011

 

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• EX-OPTIMISTS
• Topic:
• Jul 16, 2011
• Date of Publication:

ISAF YOUTH WORLDS

Zadar, CROATIA

July 7 to 16

FIVE of the six gold medallist skippers at the 2011 ISAF World Youth Championships had previously sailed at Optimist World Championships.

Remarkably two of them, Carlos Roble (ESP) in the 29er and Martin Lowy (BRA) in the SL16 only left the Optimist class seven months ago, having participated in the Optimist Worlds at the end of 2010.

Carlos Robles	Martin Lowy

 

Historically it is quite rare to win gold at the ISAF event in the first year of participation. The other three winners this year, Lara Vadlau (AUT) and Jordi Xammar (ESP) in the 420s and Maxime Mazard (FRA) in the Laser had taken the more usual 3-4 years to progress from the under-16 Optimist event to winning the under-19 ISAF championship. Lara’s crew Tanja Frank was in fact her team-mate from the 2008 Austrian team.

In total at least 16 of the 18 medallist skippers were former Optimist sailors, 10 of them having participated in IODA Worlds. Sailing is a sport for life and the Optimist prepares young sailors well, be it single handed, double-handed or multi hull, Olympic competition, Volvo Ocean Race or Americas Cup.

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• OLYMPICS
• Topic:
• Sep 10, 2010
• Date of Publication:

1ST YOUTH OLYMPICS

87% of the sailors who qualified for the event were former Optimist sailors.

The first ever Youth Olympics held in Singapore in July 2010 were for sailors aged 15 or 16. The boat used was the International Byte.

The Optimist Class has a long tradition of supplying most of the sailors and medallists at the adult Olympics, so we were interested to see how soon “our” sailors started to excel in a single-hander unfamiliar to most of them. We might have expected the results...

87% of the sailors who qualified for the event were former Optimist sailors, and a high proportion of them had attended international regattas in the Class, and most of them had continued in Optimists until 14 or 15.

 

Some Statistics

 

Attended Optimist Worlds - 32%	Year of last Optimist International event (sailors who attended such events only)
Attended Optimist Continentals - 23%
Attended other International Optimist events - 15%
Sailed Optimists (other) - 17%
Not known to have sailed Optimist - 13%
Note: above statistics do not include sailors granted discretionary places

 

The medallists

 

Medal	Sailor	Competed in Optimist...	Medal	Sailor	Competed in Optimist...
Gold	Ian Barrows (ISV)	Worlds 2008	Gold	Lara Vadlau (AUT)	Worlds 2008
Silver	Just van Aanholt (AHO)	Worlds 2009	Silver	Daphne v.d. Vaart (NED)	Euros 2009
Bronze	Florian Haufe (GER)	NAM 2007	Bronze	Constanze Stolz (GER)	2003 -2007
Photos © IOC/SYOGC

 

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• OLYMPICS
• Topic:
• Aug 30, 2008
• Date of Publication:

EX-OPTIMISTS AT THE 2008 OLYMPICS

Qingdao, China

85% of the skippers of the medal-winning Olympic boats in Qingdao were former Optimist sailors.

And 67% had participated in IODA world and continental championships.

63% of all 210 boat skippers were former Optimist sailors and 46% were former Optimist internationals

Detailed analysis of 2008

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• OLYMPICS
• Topic:
• Aug 30, 2004
• Date of Publication:

EX-OPTIMISTS SHINE IN THE 2004 OLYMPICS

Athens, Greece

74%of the skippers of the medal winning boats at the 2004 Olympics were former Optimist sailors.

And 80% of these had sailed in IODA World or continental championships.

This is more than double the percentage four years ago in Sydney. In the monohull dinghies all but three* of the skippers were ex-Optimist (two who started in the Cadet). This increase mostly reflects the increasing spread of the Optimist in the age group from which the medallists come. As older "pre-Optimist" sailors retire, their place is being taken by those who did have the opportunity to sail our little boat.

Statistics about the total number of Olympic boat-skippers have been harder to collect but it is known that at least 60% of them were ex-Optimists and almost 70% of these were former Optimist internationals.

The proportion is higher in the monohull dinghies, especially the double-handers, than in the Tornado or keelboats where the average age is notably more "pre-Optimist". Among these dinghies it is notable that while most Finn sailors did start in the Optimist relatively few had the chance to sail internationally before becoming too big for the boat! Ben Ainslie famously did, being 63kg at his final Worlds, but sailed anyway! In the Laser the percentage of ex-Optimists was reduced by the wild-card sailors, only one of whom had sailed Optimists.

Almost all the medallists were in their second or third Olympics. It is therefore promising that there were several young first-timers who achieved good results, most notably Shen Xiaoying (CHN), Victoria Kraviotis (GRE), Sven Coster (NED) and Nico Delle Karth (AUT), all of course former Optimist sailors.

See a detailed analysis of 2004 (PDF)

For a different perspective - what happens to Optimist sailors when they graduate from the Class - see www.optiworld.org/lowdropout.pdf

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