Adieu France, bye bye Britain! The Champions are us!

When you put two sailing superpowers like Great Britain and France behind you, there is something to be pleased about. Impossible not to be: our boys, at the Under-19 Youth Worlds in Auckland (390 young sailors from 65 nations), one of the sacred temples of the sport, captured the Nations Trophy by winning the team classification.

A great result for the Italian team, captained by one who knows a thing or two about victories (and who right here in the Gulf of Hauraki, in 2000, won one of her many world titles): DT Alessandra Sensini (joined on site by Federal Technicians Gigi Picciau and Mauro Covre).

THREE “HEAVY” MEDALS
As for individual performances, we come back from New Zealand with the beauty of three medals, two silvers (Alexandra Stalder-Silvia Speri in the Women’s 420 and Paolo Giargia in the Men’s Laser Radial) and one bronze (with Carolina Albano in the Women’s Radial).

AND MANY GOOD PLACINGS
In addition to the medals won, the Azzurri finished fourth in the Macra 15 Mixed Catamaran with Gianluigi Ugolini and Maria Giubilei (Compagnia della Vela Roma-CV Ventotene), second in the standings until the last day and mocked right on the edge, and fifth with Edoardo Ferraro and Francesco Orlando (YC San Remo) in the Men’s 420 Doubles. Also good was the sixth place finish of both Matteo Evangelisti (LNI Civitavecchia) than of Giorgia Speciale (SEF Stamura) in the two RS:X sailboard fleets, Federico Zampiccoli and Leonardo Chisté ‘s (CV Arco) eighth place in the Men’s Doubles 29er, while Michelle Waink and Lorenza Gadotti (CV Arco-CV Torbole) finished with a 19th place finish.