The British Sailing Team’s Micky Beckett scored a crucial victory in the countdown to Paris 2024, winning the Princess Sofia Regatta in Palma for the third consecutive year.
Beckett, 29, dominated the men’s dinghy class at the traditional Olympic classes season opener, wrapping up the win in the 193-boat fleet with a day to spare.
Beckett’s gold let the way in a three-medal haul for the Brits, with John Gimson and Anna Burnet winning bronze in the Nacra 17 and young gun Matilda Nicholls also taking bronze, her first medal at senior level, in the ILCA 6.
Beckett would have gone into the 10-boat double points medal race safe in the knowledge that no-one could topple him from the top spot, such was his lead.
The Welshman refused to rest on his laurels, finishing second in the medal race to win by an enormous 44 points.
Beckett’s Australian arch-rival Matt Wearn, the reigning Olympic and world champion, finished fifth.
“I’ve been trying all week not to think about the fact that if I won this event, it would be three in a row, but now it’s real, and it’s pretty cool,” said Beckett, who booked his Paris spot with Team GB in October last year.
“I came here with more confidence, having won twice previously, but also more pressure.
“All the top guys will be following their own plans to build up to this summer, but I have to say that beating them is a nice confidence boost.
“This win means that something’s working, but it doesn’t mean that the job is done or that anything is guaranteed.
“ILCAs are simple boats, and all you have are your skills and your decision-making. That’s worked for me this last week but it doesn’t guarantee it will work in a few months’ time. There’s plenty more work to be done.”
ILCA 6 success for Erdi
Hungary’s new European champion Maria Érdi added the Sofía title in the ILCA 6 women’s dinghy with a ninth in the Medal Race which was won by France’s Louise Cervera.
Australia’s Zoe Thomson finished second overall and Britain’s young Mathilda Nicholls took her first senior World Cup medal in third. The Hungarian took encouragement from her performance against a field stacked with Olympic contenders.
Erdi said: “Palma is always such a high-scoring event I knew at the beginning of the week that it was going to be extremely tricky and I would have to fight for every point and we also saw that we would get a variety of conditions and so I knew I would have to just chip away.
“I did not have a lot of good first-mark roundings and so the key was my downwind speed and I performed on the very tricky light winds days when a lot of people score big points. And so I am very proud of my performance over the week over the conditions. Everyone is here, all of the Paris 2024 rivals were here, and a lot seemed to be struggling but I am super stoked that my best friend Zoe Thomson finished in second place.”
Programme curtailed
Very light winds curtailed the final day programme and the 49erFX women’s skiff, iQFOiL men’s and women’s windsurfing and the 470 mixed dinghy events had their finale cancelled, which meant their standings from Friday stood.
The ILCA 7 men’s dinghy title had already been won with a day to spare by Team GB’s Micky Beckett and, while the Nacra 17 mixed multihulls did their Medal Race, the Palma title was already in the bag for Italy’s Olympic champions Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti. Germany’s Philipp Buhl finished runner-up ahead of his French training partner and fellow former World Champion Jean Baptiste Bernaz.
Italy take home both men and women’s skiff titles as Jana Germani and Giorgia Bertuzzi won by a single point. Germani said: “Winning here is really important for us because we see that all the training and the hard work is paying off. It's four more months until the Games, and we will push every day for the best result of our career.”
French 470 success
The result also stood for the 470 mixed dinghy where the French duo of Camille Lecointre and Jeremie Mion denied the local Spanish hopes of their new world champions Jordi Xammar and Nora Brugman.
They, too, won by just one point with three German crews in the top five. Simon Diesch and Anna Markfort in fourth still lead their Olympic selection trials which will conclude at the Europeans in Cannes.
Mion said: “The key this week has been to be consistent and polyvalent because across the week we had strong light and medium winds. It is always the same thing in sailing, you have to be fast and to be fast in every conditions. And also to stay very open-minded on what was happening on the water.
“This was not a classic Palma like we all know. We had to look every time at the others and to the wind to see what can happen. Now also that we are approaching the Olympics, I think one of the keys is to stay together on the boat, to have very, very good communication and trust each other until the end.”
While Spain was denied the opportunity for a win in the 470s, there was home-grown glory in the 49er men’s skiff where second in the 10-boat showdown was enough for Diego Botin and Florian Trittel to finally land the Sofia title which has eluded them over the years.
Botin smiled: “It is a special day for us, because we have just won our first Princesa Sofía, which is a very special regatta that we have been coming to all our lives. We've been close but we've never won it before.”
Poland’s Pawel Tarnowski was another event leader who endured the nervous wait for wind. Admitting his preference would have been to race in the men’s iQFOiL decider, the two-times past Sofía winner in the RS:X class commented: “It is a shame we didn't have a chance to race the Medal Series. But overall, speaking of all the races of the week, I'm super happy. I think I’ve basically got faster through the winter, that's for sure. I am a bit more patient, a bit more calm.
"My mentality when it comes to pressure has improved, some of which comes from being a new dad and having a kid. I was afraid that maybe it would be difficult but my baby and my wife give me so much motivation.”
