Surf Cat

by St.Petersburg 2019 RS:X Youth World Championship 26 Nov 11:18 PST

2019 RS:X Windsurfing Youth World Championship © Anya Semeniouk

Two world champions were decided the last day of the race on Neva Bay, St Petersburg in what turned out to be a dramatic conclusion to the RS:X Youth World Championship. Champions were Russian Yena Reznikova and Israeli Eval Zhor.

On the final day of the championship, a wind of 5-6 knots allowed for the full schedule of races to be delivered, with thanks to the skills of the race officers and their teams. After a short pause due to the lack of the wind, there was sufficient wind to allow the day’s battles to take place where the medals and titles were at stake.

The girl’s medal race started first and Russian Yana Reznikova from Moscow had to come first, hoping that her rival, Pianazza from France would make a mistake and finish third if not fourth or fifth. The battle for gold was going to be extremely close.

In the medal race, it was destined that both Pianazza and Reznikova would keep a close eye on each other. Neither could avoid losing touch of each other to keep their hands on gold. The rivals went one direction from the very start, but the Russian woman was more successful than the French woman, with Reznikova coming to the first mark first and became a leader.

The race between Pianazza and Reznikova raged back and forth throughout the race and Reznikova was supported by her compatriot Schedrina who moved up the rankings to separate the leading Russian and Pianazza. Reznikova won the medal race and the world title where Pianazza, who had led for large parts of the week, had to settle for silver. Naama Greenberg from Israel took bronze. Russian racer Anastasia Shchedrina took advantage of the battle up front to finish the medal race second and fifth overall for the championship.

Reznikova won the championship by 26 points. This result brought her the championship. Pianazza was three points behind the Russian racer and took second place. Israeli Naama Greenberg finished third (45 points). On the fourth line is her compatriot Linoy Geva (55), and on the fifth is another Russian (79).

In the medal race among men, there is a similar situation. From the very first mark, the Israelis – Eyal Yohay Zror and Daniel Basik Tashtash – took the lead and moved close to each other on each mark. Until the finish line, the best friends would move clear of their rivals. It was they who competed for gold with each other. In this struggle, Zror turned out to be more successful, and he finished first and won the championship. His teammate – Tashtash – became the second in the medal race and in the overall ranking. The most fierce struggling was for the bronze medal. Israeli Ruven Hillel surpassed Greek Alexandros Kalpogiannakis only with one point.

The Youth World championship in the RS:X Olympic Class was held from August 4 to 10. During this time, the judges held a qualification, a run of final races and medal races in the male and female fleets. Only one day of the competition, on August 8, the races were cancelled, because wind speed did not exceed three knots.