April 14, 2004
2 minutes reading time
Racing Underway
62 boats from 24 countries started the 2004 Tornado World Championship in Palma de Mallorca, Spain yesterday. The competitors had a sunny and 20°C warm first day of racing, nice sea breeze 8-10 knots that picked up later in the morning.
62 boats from 24 countries started the 2004 Tornado World Championship in Palma de Mallorca, Spain yesterday. The competitors had a sunny and 20°C warm first day of racing, nice sea breeze 8-10 knots that picked up later in the morning.
Quite a change from the past rainy days where the temperatures dropped to 10°C.
Race 1 started with 3 boats early over the line. The Greeks Iordanis PASCHALIDES/Christos GAREFIS had a bad collision while blasting downwind and came in with serious damage to the bow. France had 3 boats finishing top 5 including Francois GABART/David ROMAIN (FRA) who are disputing the Youth World Champion Title. BESSON/Arnaud JARLEGAN (FRA), winners of the race, were disqualified for being OCS and thus Santiago LANGE/Carlos ESPINOLA got the first place followed by the French Youth team.
Canadians Oskar JOHANSSON/John CURTIS, trying to qualify the country, and themselves, for the Olympics had an excellent race and finished 3rd.
7 Youth teams (both crew less than 21 years old) are participating in the event and for the first time the title of Youth World Champion will be awarded.
AustriansThomas ZAJAC/Thomas CZAJKA
FrenchMoana VAIREAUX/Romain PETIT
Baptiste BALZEAU/Gael LEDOUX
Guillaume COYON/Lucas MILLIERET
Fancois MORVAN/Matthieu VANDAME
Francois GABART/Romain DAVID
GreekConstantinos GKIRIS/Andreas TSAMITAS
The wind picked up a little (10-12 knots) for Race 2 and there were no OCSs. The right side of the course was definitely favored. Americans John LOVELL/Charlie OGLETREE, winners of the Princess Sofia Trophy, finished first.
“We have been sailing in the Bay for quite a while now and it feels very nice out there. We are sailing fast and we are very satisfied with our good team work. But this is only the beginning of the event and we still have a long way to go”, said John LOVELL.
Slovenians Dusan PUH/Alan BIDERMAN finished second followed by French team Olivier BACKES/Laurent VOIRON. Slovenia is also trying to gain Olympic qualification.
Top 20 Results After 2 Races
| Overall | Sail Number | Crew | Points | 1 | 2 |
| 1 | USA 808 | John Lovell/Charlie Ogletree | 6 | 5 | 1 |
| 2 | ARG 1 | Santiago Lange/Carlos Espinola | 9 | 1 | 8 |
| 3 | FRA 28 | Yann Guichard/Christophe Espagnon | 15 | 4 | 11 |
| 4 | ESP 1 | Fernando Echavarri/Anton Paz | 15 | 9 | 6 |
| 5 | AUS 967 | Darren Bundock/John Forbes | 15 | 8 | 7 |
| 6 | GBR 420 | Leigh McMillan/Mark Bulkeley | 16 | 12 | 4 |
| 7 | AUT 380 | Roman Hagara/Hans Peter Steinacher | 18 | 13 | 5 |
| 8 | FRA 279 | Xavier Revil/Laurent Guillemette | 19 | 10 | 9 |
| 9 | CAN 369 | Oskar Johansson/John Curtis | 22 | 3 | 19 |
| 10 | PUR 1 | Enrique Figueroa/Jorge Hernandez | 24 | 7 | 17 |
| 11 | FRA 295 | Olivier Backes/Laurent Voiron | 25 | 22 | 3 |
| 12 | FRA 293 | François Gabart/David Romain | 27 | 2 | 25 |
| 13 | POR 2 | Hugo Rocha/Luis Beito | 27 | 14 | 13 |
| 14 | RUS 007 | Sergey Dzienbaev/Oleg Ryazantsev | 30 | 15 | RDG |
| 15 | FRA 282 | Matthieu Souben/Gurvan Bontemps | 31 | 21 | 10 |
| 16 | SLO 1 | Dusan Puh/Alan Biderman | 33 | 31 | 2 |
| 17 | GER 1087 | Johannes Polgar/Carsten Happel | 35 | 23 | 12 |
| 18 | NZL 87 | Aaron McIntosh/Mark/Kennedy | 37 | 17 | 20 |
| 19 | GRE 1 | Dimitris Theodorakis/Andonis Bougiouris | 37 | 19 | 18 |
| 20 | ESP 23 | Toni Rivas/Fabian Escude | 39 | 6 | 33 |
2 more races are scheduled for today starting at 1200 hours.