Gabriel Skoczek, Achille Nebout leads 470 Men fleet on Day 1: 470 Junior European Championship 2011
France’s Gabriel Skoczek and Achille Nebout clinched an early lead at the end of 470 Junior European Championship 2011, as they earned a first and third place to finish on top of the Men’s fleet standings with four points. With a difference of just one point,
second place was occupied by Pablo Völker and Agustín Cunill Martinez from Argentina who won a fourth and first position on Day 1.
The first day of 470 Men’s Junior European Championship 2011 was extremely exciting as the sailors enjoyed ideal weather conditions during their sail. The wind blew around 20 knots at the start of the first day’s races with big waves and shifty gusts on
Nieuwpoort waters. However, the breeze decreased to 14 knots when the 470 boats set sail.
The Crawford Brothers from Australia, Matthew Crawford and Robert Crawford, had a convincing first day and finished third overall with six points. On the other hand, the 2011 470 Junior World Champions Nicklas Dackhammer and Fredrik Bergstrom had a bit of
rough start at the event, as they occupied ninth place in the standings with eight points.
While speaking to the local media after the conclusion of Day 1, Bergstrom said, “It was pretty good anyway. We did some tactics and technique training before the race and it took us only about 10 minutes and then we felt like 'ah this is OK'.”
He added, “The waves were very tricky and very big and it was pretty hard, especially in race 2 downwind, which felt double as long compared to the upwind because of the current. We did pretty well anyway, we came fourth in both races. We had some problems
with the start and the upwind wasn't too good and we did some small mistakes which is why we didn't do better.”
The overall standings of 470 Men’s fleet at the end of Day 1 are given below:
1. FRA 34 Gabriel SKOCZEK, Achille NEBOUT 1, 3 = 4 points
2. ARG 3 Pablo VÖLKER, Agustín CUNILL MARTINEZ 4, 1 = 5 points
3. AUS 5 Matthew CRAWFORD, Robert CRAWFORD 2, 4 = 6 points
4. FRA 8 Kévin PEPONNET, Julien LEBRUN 1, 6 = 7 points
5. FRA 77 Sacha PELISSON, Nicolas ROSSI 5, 2 = 7 points
6. ITA 29 Simon SIVITZ KOSUTA, Jas FARNETI 7, 1 = 8 points
7. GBR 852 Philip SPARKS, Ben GRATTON 6, 2 = 8 points
8. GRE 10 Vasilios PAPOUTSOGLOU, Ioannis ORFANOS 2, 6 = 8 points
9. SWE 345 Nicklas DACKHAMMAR, Fredrik BERGSTRÖM 4, 4 = 8 points
10. FRA 20 Louis MOYSAN, Baptiste BERTHIER 3, 9 = 12 points
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