Consistency and persistence pay off in variable breeze
On Friday the organizers of the Kieler Woche took full advantage of the opportunities for maximizing the amount of good sailing for the Olympic classes. There were four races for the majority of the fleets, which presented challenging conditions on the courses and across the outer fjord.
The Norwegian Hermann Tomasgaard easily discarded his black-flag disqualification at the end of the day. With scores of 1, 6, 1, 2, the sixth-place finisher in this year’s World Championship fought his way to the top of the fleet and also had his training partner and World Champion Philipp Buhl firmly under control. The German has slipped to sixth place at his home event with a 6, 9, 3, 16. The other podium places in the intermediate ranking are taken by Great Britain’s Michael Beckett and Italian Giovanni Coccoluto.
Consistency is often said to be the key to success. In the Radial fleet, consistency is currently being demonstrated by 22-year-old Hungarian Maria Erdi. The former U21 World Champion competed at the 2016 Olympic Games at 18, but missed the medal race in Rio and is now striving for more. Erdi is showing great form with scores of 2, 8, 8, 7, 6, 3 and is starting to put pressure on the reigning Olympic champion Marit Bouwmeester of the Netherlands.
Erdi commented, “It is important to have consistent results. The conditions were not easy. You never knew what would happen. Therefore you had to be patient and wait for your chance. This has worked well so far.” Her goals for Kieler Woche and the Olympic Games are the same, “I want to be in the top three. We are working for a medal in Tokyo.” The 2020 World Champion Marit Bouwmeester (1, 3, 6, 6, 12, 9) is only one point ahead and took a deep breath after a long day at sea, “Four races were a decent amount of work. But it is good to finally be able to sail races again. It is the first regatta since the World Championship in February.” The Dutch athlete is not yet sure about her current form, “Kiel Week is the warm-up for the European Championship in October. I hope for a medal there, but of course we are lacking in preparation.” At the moment, the Danish sailor Anne-Marie Rindom is in third place.