The engineer and philosopher won the world championship: what a feat in Auckland for the blue Nacra

Winning in the Olympic classes is as complicated an exercise as ever, if it is a doubles is even more so. Because in two-person crews, in addition to training the man’s feeling with the boat, the man’s feeling with the man, or rather with the woman as in the case of the mixed catamaran Nacra 17, must be honed. If then the man in question is an engineer and the woman a philosopher let’s say that the balance to be sought in the boat becomes something special. As special as what Vittorio Bissaro and Maelle Frascari did in the waters of Auckland, going on to win an extremely difficult Nacra 17 world championship in terms of intensity, technical difficulty of the race course and composition of the fleet. We are pleased to point out one thing: in an Olympic quadrennium the level gradually rises season after season, and going on to win the world championship a little more than 6 months before the Olympics is equivalent to winning perhaps the highest level event of the entire quadrennium, and excuse me for saying so.

If we then add to that the fact that for Italy it is an encore with a special flavor, then the celebration in Auckland is truly total. In fact in 2018 the Nacra world gold had been Italian, with Riggero Tita and Caterina Banti (who finished seventh with a second part of the event in total crescendo), today it is still Italian but with a different crew. We believe there is no similar precedent for our sail. If there were a dictionary just for sports terms under “teamwork” it should say “see Italian national Nacra 17 and ask coach Gabriele Bruni.”

Vittorio and Maelle’s world championship is a small masterpiece, built in the Sicilian waters of Trapani where the Nacra national team has been based for more than two years, looking for those varied conditions then encountered on race courses around the world. A variety of weather conditions the blue nacristi found in the Hauraki Gulf, with a final day of high winds and waves. And the Italian Nacra did not shake. Victory in round 16, when everything was in danger of slipping away, then a tight mark on the Danish opponents headed into the medal race to go on to take a well-deserved world championship on the water, without appeal. For the Tokyo Olympics, the crew that will represent Italy in the Nacras has not yet been chosen, and Coach Bruni’s task is becoming increasingly difficult, but we imagine the coach is proud to have this “problem.”

So today Italian sailing has the shy smile of Vittorio Bissaro and the blue eyes of Maelle Frascari. And they are two beautiful faces.

Mauro Giuffrè

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