Youth Match Racing World Championship - Overall
by Lucile Troel 24 Jul 2022 02:25 BST
17-23 July 2022
Following an exhilarating final day, it is American Jeffrey Petersen, who takes the win against Swede Marius Westerlind to become Youth Match Racing World Champion 2022! Timothée Rossi completes the podium, ahead of Thimoté Polet after a tense Franco-French duel.
It was at 09:00 UTC today, once the breeze had picked up (10 knots of W'ly wind), that the Race Committee launched this final day of the Youth Match Racing World Championship. The morning was devoted to the completion of the semi-finals, which were incredibly tense! In the 4th flight, Thimoté Polet was able to pull level with Marius Westerlind in a particularly controlled match. Meantime, the match which saw Timothée Rossi pitted against Jeffrey Petersen saw the American play a very tactical hand, inflicting a penalty on the Frenchman to ultimately pocket the win, which enabled him to qualify for the championship final. In the very last flight, in what proved to be a decisive match, the masterful Swedish sailor Marius Westerlind also secured his ticket for the final against Thimoté Polet.
After returning to shore to decide the draw for the final podium battle, the 4 crews set sail at 13:30 UTC to try to settle their scores. In the race for 3rd place (the first skipper to secure two bullets), Timothée Rossi dominated play 2 - 0 against compatriot Thimoté Polet, thus equalling his best performance for France in a Youth Match Racing World Championship (Robin Follin bagged 3rd in Nouméa in 2016). In the fight for first and second place, American Jeffrey Petersen, reigning world number two, came out on top, thrashing Swede Marius Westerlind with a blistering score of 3 - 0 to become Youth Match Racing World Champion 2022.
Impressions
Jeffrey Petersen (USA)
"World Champion, those words sound incredible! Looking back, we finished second last year against another American team, on home waters in California, and that was a bitter pill to swallow. So, to win here feels a bit like our redemption. We threw everything we had at it. We didn't get off to a very good start in our competition, but my crew has been really incredible. They've given their absolute all and all credit to them. I couldn't be prouder of them! We're really happy to have pulled this off for the United States and for our club, and to be able to keep this title in the USA! We're really stoked and grateful."
Marius Westerlind (SWE)
"We were really very happy to win the semi-final and get through to the final after finishing 8th in the round robin. We entered the final phase telling ourselves that we had everything to gain, so we gave our all in the final, but Jeffrey (Petersen) really sailed a blinder, so it was tough for us. Even though we were a little disappointed in the moment, we're really ecstatic to be world number two!"
Timothée Rossi (FRA)
"A medal is a medal. We were forced to bow out after losing our semi-final. We'd already gone a very long way in this competition. We weren't expecting to do so well. When we made it into the battle for 3rd, we said to ourselves, it's the bronze or nothing. It's always a bit hard to compete against a French crew, as we know each other very well. We're happy but also disappointed not to have pulled off the same feat in the final. One thing for sure is that we'll come back even stronger next year and there will only be French crews in the final! In the semis, I think the American was clearly more experienced. They came second last year, whilst this was our first championship. That's the name of the game, but we'll work hard to ensure we're in front next year!"
Success for the APCC!
With regards to the organisation, Luc Pillot, president of the APCC, is delighted by how smoothly the Youth Match Racing World Championship has gone: "we're very happy with this championship and the way things ran. I'm used to saying that when something is well organised in advance, fortune smiles on the organisers, and we have been particularly spoilt here in terms of the weather conditions. Indeed, it's in keeping with the French Match Racing Internationals, which we've been organising for the past 20 years. In future, we hope to have other opportunities to organise major championships, but in the meantime, we set a date for next summer in the bay of Pornichet for the French Match Racing Internationals!"
Full results available here.