The Israeli sailing on the way to a particularly interesting day, in the center of which there will be two medal cruises in which the Israeli representatives will be able to return with medals from the 470 World Sailing Championships and the European Windsurfing Championship in the RSX model in Villamora, Portugal. Which medals will Gil Cohen, Noam Chomri and Ofek Elimelech win?
At 15:30 there will be a medal cruise at the World Championships in 470 mixed sails, with Gil Cohen and Noam Materials ranked first and a gap of 15 points from the pairs in second place, but because in the medal cruise the score is double, they will have to finish seventh or higher to secure the medal World Gold.
Along with them, Noa Lasri and Tal Sadeh, who are ranked sixth with the start of the medal cruise, and Saar Tamir and Nitai Hasson, who are ranked tenth, will also compete in this medal cruise. So there are actually three crews on the medal cruise in 470 mixed, an impressive achievement by all accounts.
In the men’s 470 category, the team consisting of Maor Abu and Yoav Rose failed to get the Olympic ticket to the Tokyo Games, after finishing the world championship in 13th place. In women, Noya Baram and Shachar Tibi are also in 13th place. Anyway, at the Tokyo Olympics there will be one team made up of only women in this model.
Another European RSX Champion on the way?
At the European RSX Windsurfing Championships, Ofek Elimelech is ranked first and in fact has already secured a medal in the competition even before the medal cruise in Villamora, Portugal. At the moment, the Israeli surfer is ahead of world champion Kieran Badula and his battle in the medal cruise will actually focus on the position against the Dutchman with the gap between them standing at only two points.
The men’s Olympic surfing team, led by Gur Steinberg, once again delivers the goods in real time, after the previous European Championship Yoav Cohen won the gold medal and Shahar Zubari the silver, so they both compete for the Olympic ticket to Tokyo in a battle to be decided at the upcoming RSX World Championships in Cadiz, Spain.
Zubari reached the current European Championship competition in Portugal with a foot injury so he finished only 17th, while Cohen, the reigning European champion, started strong but sculpted in a leap to the third cruise and only last night significantly improved his ranking to compete in the medal cruise as ranked eighth.
In addition, Katie Spichkov, the European runner-up champion who has already secured her place at the Tokyo Olympics, will also compete in the women’s medal cruise. The senior Israeli surfer this time entered the medal medal cruise from ninth place. The medal cruises at the European Championships in RSX will open from 16:00.