28 crews make up the Spanish team, ready to qualify the ten classes represented at the Paris 2024 Games
MADRID, 10 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish sailing team aspires to everything this Friday at the World Championship in The Hague (Netherlands), with its eyes already set on the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, since the first places in the country will be at stake for next summer .
Sailing, the sport that has achieved the most Olympic medals for Spain (21), already awakens its Olympic nose in a World Cup that it attends with 28 crews, a total of 38 sailors. In the year before the Games, World Sailing, the international sailing federation, once again brings together the quintessential annual event for all Olympic classes in the same event.
In The Hague, 1,094 sailors will gather to fight for the 107 places that will be awarded on this occasion: eleven for the male iQFOil and eleven for the female, eight for the male Formula Kite and eight for the female, sixteen for ILCA 7 and sixteen for ILCA 6, ten for 49er and ten for 49er FX, eight for the 470 Mixed, and nine for Nacra 17.
“The main objective is to qualify the country for the Olympic Games. Obviously we all like to win and all the medals that come will be celebrated, but really the objective is to qualify the country,” says the director of Olympic preparation, Francisco Gil, in statements provided by the Royal Spanish Sailing Federation (RFEV).
“In the Test Event very few countries would have classified all classes, but Spain at that time would have classified seven classes. We are one of the sailing powers, it is undeniable and we have to be there and fight to continue like this. Powerful countries, As a team, with ten classes, there aren’t that many in the world,” he adds, with the aim of the team qualifying for Paris 2024 in those 10 classes.
Regarding the double classes, in 470, Spain has four crews: Jordi Xammar and Nora Brugman, Silvia Mas and Nico Rodríguez, Neus Ballester and Jaime Wizner, and Pablo Ruiz and Mar Gil. In addition to the Olympic goal, Xammar and Brugman arrive as current runners-up in the world.
The 49er team is made up of the duets of Diego Botín and Florian Trittel, Albert Torres and Elías Aretz, and Pol Marsans and José Manuel Ruiz, among whom Botín and Trittel will try to improve on the world silver obtained last year. Támara Echegoyen and Paula Barceló together with Alicia Fras and Elena Barrio will compete in 49er FX, where Echegoyen and Barceló will defend the world bronze.
On the other hand, in Nacra 17, Tara Pacheco and Andrés Barrio will experience their first World Cup as a crew in The Hague. In individual classes, the new disciplines take on special prominence, with two Top 5 in the world ranking: Pilar Lamadrid, second in the female iQFOiL, and Gisela Pulido, fourth in the female Formula Kite.
Along with Lamadrid, Nicole van der Velden and Andrea Torres close ranks on the Olympic tables, while Nacho Baltasar, Jorge Aranzueque and Bernat Tomás will be in the men’s team. Alex Climent, Bernat Cortés and Jacobo Espi make up the men’s Formula Kite team. In ILCA 7, Joel Rodríguez, Leo Barreto, Joaquín Blanco and Pep Cazador will sail, while Cristina Pujol, Ana Moncada, Lara Himmes and Martina Reino will do so in ILCA 6.