Focus on medal races

21/10/2022

After 4 slalom races Thursday, the predictions for the 10 riders who will race in the final on Saturday are profiling. Sebastian Koerdel (GER220) and Lilian De Geus (NED3) are on the podium’s first step tonight. The difference in points between each sailor remains small, everything can still change with Friday's marathon (if conditions permit) where the points count double.

Given the weather forecast for Friday (+40 knots), the race committee decided to change the race programme. The marathon was not run Thursday, and it got postponed until Friday if conditions allow it. Grand slam for Sebastian Koerdel (GER220) who won all the heats today! Koerdel is ruling the ranking with a 26 point lead and proves that he belongs on the top step of the podium of this iQFOiL World Championship in Brest. Luuc Opzeeland (NED55), third at the last world championship, takes the next place in the ranking, he started the day in 7th position and managed to climb all his way up to second.
The young Frenchman Clément Bourgeois (FRA53), studying engineering in Brest, closes the podium at only 5 points from the Dutchman and climbing up 1 position in the ranking, after a serious injury last year that forced him to stop for several months, the young Frenchman is back. While Thomas Goyard (FRA3) dropped today from his 5th to 17th place because of an early start on the first race Thursday. Amado Vrieswijk (NED2020) who had an accident with his foil a few days ago, doesn’t seem to slow his pace today ranking 7th of the provisional general ranking. He said: “It is good today, I must say it hurt a bit more so, when I was going on the water it was pounding I was like “ohh should I go, should not, should I risk it?”. I told myself if today it would go bad I would give up, but actually it went very well today I managed to climb some spots, I managed to win a race, so yeah it was hard but it worked out”. In the U21’s category, Gaspard Carfantan (FRA379), Youth World Champion last year, won the first slalom race of the day (heat number 2 of race 1), which allowed him to take the lead on Max Castelain (NED36) by only 1 point.

Lilian De Geus (NED3) started the day as 3rd overal and climbed all the wat to the first step of the podium after having signed four slalom races in the top 3. She is closely followed by Shahar Tibi (ISR3) who remains in her second place in the ranking and Pilar Lamadrid (ESP12) wo went down from yesterday’s leader of the day to being 6th as of this Thursday morning and managed to end the day up being third. Daniela Peleg (ISR2), U21 European Champion, is leading the U21’s category, ranked 6th overall women. The local Lucie Belbeoch (FRA18) lost one place in the overall ranking and is now 11th, only 4 points from the 10th place. She could be the only French woman running the finals on Saturday if she catches up during Friday's races.