Displaying items by tag: Vasilij Zbogar

27th March 2018

Vasilij Žbogar Joins Irish Sailing’s High Performance Squad As Laser Coach

Vasilij Žbogar is one of Slovenia's most successful athletes

#Tokyo2020 - Three-time Olympic medallist Vasilij Žbogar has joined Irish Sailing’s high performance squad to coach the men’s Laser team.

Žbogar will take over coaching for Finn Lynch and Liam Glynn’s Tokyo 2020 aspirations on a team set to be bolstered later this year by the addition of Ewan McMahon and Johnny Durcan.

The quartet will benefit from a wealth of experience eon the part of the decorated Slovenian sailor. Making his Olympic debut in Sydney in 2000, Žbogar won his first Olympic medal with a bronze in Athens four years later.

When he took silver in Beijing 2008, Žbognar became only the third man in history to win two Olympic Laser medals.

After a move to the Finn class, Žbogar kept up his high-performing ways with a strong sixth-place finish at London 2012, a bronze in the 2015 Finn Worlds and silver at his fifth and final Olympics in Rio two years ago.

Over his 16 years at sailing’s pinnacle, Vasilij Žbogar became one of Slovenia’s most successful athletes — and now Ireland’s Laser squad has the chance to benefit form his expertise.

More on this on the Afloat.ie podcast with team manager James O'Callaghan here.

Published in Tokyo 2020

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Esailing & Virtual Sailing information

The concept of e-sailing, or virtual sailing, is based on a computer game sailing challenge that has been around for more than a decade.

The research and development of software over this time means its popularity has taken off to the extent that it has now become a part of the sailing seascape and now allows people to take an 'active part' in some of the most famous regattas across the world such as the Vendée Globe, Route du Rhum, Sydney Hobart, Volvo Ocean Race, America’s Cup and some Olympic venues too, all from the comfort of their armchair.

The most popular model is the 'eSailing World Championship'. It is an annual esports competition, first held in 2018 and officially recognised by World Sailing, the sports governing body.

The eSailing World Championship is a yearly competition for virtual sailors competing on the Virtual Regatta Inshore game.

The contract to run the event was given to a private company, Virtual Regatta that had amassed tens of thousands of sailors playing offshore sailing routing game following major offshore races in real-time.

In April 2020, the company says on its website that it has 35,000 active players and 500,000 regattas sailed.

Virtual Regatta started in 2010 as a small team of passionate designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs gathered around the idea that virtual sailing sports games can mix with real races and real skippers.