VOR Sailors Award 2018 European Champions

The final day of the 2018 Optimist European Championship came to a close last Friday with the 3^rd race of the Final Series held in perfect sailing conditions.  The current was the one element that challenged the sailors over the entire Qualification and Final Series, but those sailors who could master it ended up on top of the leaderboard.

The Italian sailors pulled out all the stops on the final day to take the European Championship title and third place overall in the Boys Fleet.  Alex Demurtas of ITALY was third overall going into the last race, but his 4^thplace in the final race was good enough to take the lead as he jumped from 3^rd to 1^st to win the 2018 Optimist European Championship Title.  

Leading the Gold fleet going into the last day was David Santacrue from SPAIN.  Unfortunately, his 18^th place finish in the last day could not be dropped as he had a BFD earlier in the series and ended up second overall in the championship.

But it was Italian Teammate Lorenzo Pezzilli who made the biggest gains on the day.  He was 7^th overall going into the last race of the Final Series.  He jumped onto the podium in third place by winning the final race in the championship.

In the Girls Fleet, Victoria Charata Mackinnon of Argentina sailed a really impressive series to take the Overall Girls European Championship. In the incredibly tough sailing conditions, she had 3 firsts, 3 seconds, a 3rd, 4th , 7th and her drop race 16^th, she finished 30 points ahead of the second place finisher.

As Victoria does not live in Europe, she was not eligible to be awarded the 2018 Girls European Champion.  This honour went to Cosimo Schlüter from GERMANY.  She won the last race in the Final Series to pass Emily Mueller of GREAT BRITAIN to become the winner of the European title. Emily had a tough last race to drop her from 2^ndgoing into the last race to 5^th place overall and off the podium.

Third overall in the Girls Fleet was Mathilde Robertstad from NORWAY, who was the second European overall in the championship. Robertstad was 7^th after the Qualification Series and climbed up to 5^th Overall after Day 1 of the Final Series. A 3^rd place finish moved her up from 5^th to 3^rd on the final day.

Anna Barth from GERMANY was 4^th Overall in the Championship and was the 3^rd placed European. She was in 9^th place after the Qualification series and moved up to 4^th place after the First day of the Finals and remained in that position at the end of the championship with a 9^th place finish on the last day.

For the Closing Ceremonies, several of the sailors from the VOR came to present the prizes to all of the winners. In particular was Carolyn Brouwer(NED), on the winning team of Dongfeng, a former Optimist Sailor herself as well as Olympic Medalist, presented the medals to the top Nations at the event. They were GERMANY, ITALY and SPAIN.  

The 2018 Optimist European Championship was a fantastic championship!!  Great sailing. Great Hospitality.  Thank you to the organizers and many volunteers!

For the final results go to:

http://2018europeans.optiworld.org/en/default/races/race-resultsall

For more new coverage and Matias Capizzano images, go to:

http://2018europeans.optiworld.org/en/default/races/race