Ostia, we have a problem: are we sure that this CICO was a success?

The CICO Ostia (the Italian Olympic Classes Championship), the most important event of the season for five-rimmed dinghies, the inaugural regatta of the four-year period leading us toward Tokyo 2020, has concluded. Let’s start with a fact: it is unacceptable that a regatta with 204 dinghies on the water should be held in a harbor such as Ostia, with a serious design flaw that exposes the inlet to the Libeccio’s crosswinds.

Images and videos expertly taken by the photographers present documented a situation as dangerous as ever for the athletes, including a couple of accidents that could have had very serious consequences. All with only about 15 knots of air.

In the face of classes such as the Lasers (both standard and radial) and the Finn, present in Ostia in significant numbers (61 Laser std, 27 radial, 44 Finn), the situation of the other classes does not appear as rosy, and at the moment discontinuity from the last few seasons has not been seen.

Four Nacra 17s, eight women’s RS:Xs and twelve men’s RS:Xs, seventeen 470s between men and women, sixteen 49ers total: these are not the numbers for the highlight event of the season, these cannot and should not be the numbers for an Italian championship. Classes by the way where Italy has athletes of the highest level, (let’s just cite as an example the RS:X Olympians Camboni and Tartaglini), who would need higher numbers to increase the internal competition and consequently the overall technical level. If the sailing world is outraged when the owner-driver classes call an event with a dozen or so boats and two to three nations represented a “world championship,” even more so must we increase our attention if those who fall into worrying numbers are the classes that will try to bring us an Olympic medal in four years.

The 470 crisis in Italy is certainly not something we are discovering today, and it is no coincidence that this historic drift has been stingy with tricolor results at the international level in recent seasons.

The 4 Nacra 17s is a worrisome number. and the problem of the mixed cat, an undoubtedly fascinating boat, is structural: very expensive and complex craft (without sponsors it is a feat), mixed crews difficult to put together, are problems that need to be urgently addressed by the Federation if we hope to reap anything in the four years to come. If a sailor of undisputed talent like Lorenzo Bressani (in the water with new bowwoman Cecilia Zorzi), has almost no one to train with in Italy, how can we hope to see him competitive in view of the Olympics?

Similar discussion we can make for RS:X. If our “arrows,” above all Mattia Camboni, Flavia Tartaglini and Marta Maggetti, are confronted with a class of such small numbers, important results will be hard to come by and it is a pity for the great human capital we have at our disposal from a qualitative point of view.

The athletes will go on to compete in the ISAF circuit where they will find opponents, both numerically and qualitatively, of the highest level and will have the opportunity during the four years to measure themselves against the best specialists in their respective classes. But the problem of Italian sailing , structurally serious, remains.

Cultural problem? Organization/planning problem? We are a country surrounded by coasts, and we cannot get our Olympic sailing expressed at the levels it deserves. Let us think about it now gentlemen, if we do not want to return from Tokyo with a fistful, as in Weymouth and Rio.

Quite a headache for the two new technical figures hired by the FIV, the very talented Vasilij Zbogar and Matteo Plazzi, who will be tasked-along with the other technicians and DT Marchesini-with finding the tangle.

The total number of registrants for this 2017 CICO, 204 crews, is up (by 14) from the 2016 edition. In itself a positive figure, but as described above it is a number that must be read class by class to fully understand the health of our movement and in general of Olympic sailing in Italy.

THE WINNERS OF OSTIA

Finn

1 – Giorgio Poggi

2- Alessio Spadoni

3- Filippo Baldassari

470 men

1 – Ferrari-Calabrò

2 – Capurro-Puppo

3 – Panigoni – Massa

470 women

1 – Berta-Carraro

2 – Di Salle – Dubbini

3 -Marchesini-Fedel

49er fx

1 – Ray-Bergamaschi

2 – Genesius-Sinno

3- Sicouri-Conti

49 er

1 – Tita-Zucchetti

2 – Crivelli Visconti-Togni

3 – Groppi-De Zulian

Nacra 17

1-Ratti-Porro

2 -Ugolini-Jubilees

3 – Bressani-Zorzi

RS:X women

1 – Maggetti

2 – Tartaglini

3 – Children

RS:X men

1 – Camboni

2 – Benedetti

3 – Tomassi

Laser std

1 – Marrai

2 – Coccoluto

3 – Rooster

Laser Radial

1 – Floridia

2 – Zennaro

3 – Balbi

2.4

1 -Squared

2 – Redavid

3 – Gambarini

Mauro Giuffrè