Puerto Rico's Raul Rios And Fernando Monllor Lead The 420 Boys After Opening Day At The ISAF Youth Worlds
Boys 420 ISAF Athlete Participation Programme sailors Raul Rios and Fernando Monllor (PUR) ended the opening day of sailing at the 41st ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship in Zadar, Croatia at the top of the leader board.
The boys, who are benefitting from the coaching of World Youth Sailing Trust coach, Hugh Styles (GBR), ended Race 1 in eleventh place before claiming the bullet in Race 2.
And the Puerto Rican duo were delighted with their performance. Rios said,
"It was pretty light and shifty and it was my first bullet. It is a great feeling, this is my third ISAF Youth Worlds and I've struggled a lot in the other two and this one we're really prepared."
And Monllor added,
"It was a very nice. Sailing with Raul has been really good and a great experience, he is a really good sailor and having the opportunity to sail with him has been a great pleasure."
Tied on equal points with the Puerto Rican duo is Brazil's Ricardo Paranhos and Patrick Essle. The boys from Brazil finished 4-8 after the opening day of sailing. The Netherlands Floris van de Werkwn and Laurens van dev Werken are third on 13 points tied with Juan Manuel Garcia Rodriguez and Facundo Mario Olezza Bazan (ARG).
Japan's Daichi Mototsu and Yuki Hino won the opening race in Zadar but came 19th in Race 2 to end day one down in ninth overall.
The 420 Girls were the last off the water at 18:30 local time and only managed to fit in one race due to very light winds. Great Britain's Jessica Lavery and Georgina Morthesele won Race 1 followed by Austria's Lara Vadlau and Tanja Frank. Poland's Julia Rokosz and Joanna Szopinska finished third.
The 23-boat 29er fleet saw Carlos Robles and Florian Trittel (ESP) and Norway's Anders Kippenberg and Emil Mellbye claim the day's bullets. But it was the Spaniards who finished the day at the top of the leader board after finishing fourth in Race 2.
The Norwegians had a poor start finishing 17th in Race 1 but bounced back with the bullet in Race 2. They sit eighth.
Max Deckers and Annette Duetz (NED) came ninth and second in the two races today and are six points behind the Spanish 29er pair. America's Antoine Screve and Max Agnese finished 6-5 to end the opening day of sailing in Zadar in third place.
New Zealand's Tomer Simhony and Ellie Louise Copeland lead the SL16 following their bullet in Race 1 and third place finish in Race 2. Belgium's Phillip Hendrickx and Victor Klaas trail the Kiwis by five points. The Belgian sailors finished 4-5 today and Spain's Jordi Booth and Pau Dengra are in third after coming in second behind the Kiwis in Race 1 and finishing ninth in Race 2.
Brazil's Martin Lowy and Kim Andrade retired after the finish in Race 1, but the Brazilians bounced back with a bullet in Race 2 to end the day in ninth.
In the Laser Radial Boys, Maxime Mazard (FRA) had a fantastic day finishing with a third and second place to lead overall on five points. Terence Choo (SIN) came second in Race 1 and finished 13th in Race 2. One point behind in third place is Oz Adam (ISR) who went 12-4 today.
Mazard takes a ten point lead into the second day of sailing but with a lot of racing to come the Frenchman won't be getting carried away.
Only one race was possible in the Laser Radial Girls as the wind died throughout the day. The race win went to Hong Kong's Erica Hok Yan Leung. Sandy Fauthoux (FRA) came through in second ahead of Erika Reineke (USA).
The RS:X Boys and Girls were only able to fit one race in as well. Louis Giard (FRA) won the RS:X Boys race ahead of ISAF APP sailor Cho Wonwoo (KOR). Italy's Mattia Camboni (ITA) finished third.
And in the RS:X Girls Camboni's Italian team mate Veronica Fanciulli claimed the bullet. Agnieszka Bilksa (POL) came second and Israel's Naomi Cohen finished third.
Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games gold medallist Siripon Kaewduang - Ngam finished fourth and bronze medallist Audrey Yong (SIN) finished sixth.
Full results can be viewed here.
ISAF YouTube Channel will show footage from the event.
Keep up-to-date on all the latest from Zadar on the Youth Worlds website.
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