Shaw and Hamilton on European medal hunt
by Imogen Stanley 22 Jun 2015 08:03 BST
22 June 2015
Bryony Shaw on day 5 at ISAF Sailing World Cup Miami © Ocean Images / British Sailing Team
Windsurfers Bryony Shaw and Izzy Hamilton will be looking to challenge for medals at the 2015 RS:X European & Youth European Championships in Mondello, Sicily, as racing gets underway on Monday (22 June).
The event is also open to athletes from across the globe, who will be competing for the Open Trophy. Sailors under 17 years of age will challenge for the Youth European trophy including a number of up and coming talents from British Youth Sailing.
At the 2014 RS:X European Championships in Turkey, Shaw finished just outside the podium spots and will be heading out to right her wrongs this time around. The world number one Shaw has had a successful start to the 2015 season, winning the ISAF Sailing World Cup Miami in January and recently silver at the ISAF Sailing World Cup Weymouth and Portland.
Once again the Olympic bronze medallist will be looking towards the front pack, "Hopefully I will be challenging for medals. I am going to have my A game kit there, and my pace will be a little bit quicker than in Weymouth and Portland."
Sicily is known for tricky and tactical conditions and many of the British team have been out training. "I have done some stuff out in the venue to get used to it, it is very different to sailing in the UK and I think it is going to be very venue specific," concluded Shaw.
Hamilton finished fourth at the recent ISAF Sailing World Cup Weymouth and Portland, her best World Cup finish to date. Weymouth and Portland was a warm up regatta for the RS:X Europeans and Hamilton, after an otherwise solid week on the race course, will look to learn from her medal race mistake which put her out of medal contention, as she starts racing in Sicily.
"The World Cup is a really good training opportunity for us it's a bit of a warm-up regatta for the Europeans, lots of goals and lots of learning points."
Sixteen-year-old British Youth Sailing squad member, Emma Wilson will be racing for the first time in the women's senior fleet, amongst Olympic, World and European medallists.
Off the back of a silver medal at the recent World Cup and bronze at the EUROSAF series Delta Lloyd Regatta, Tom Squires will be racing to continue his form into the Europeans. Nearly 100 men will race off the Sicilian coast, including British Sailing Team Podium Potential sailors Sam Sills, Kieran Martin and Joe Bennett.
Double Olympic medallist Nick Dempsey will skip the event in favour of domestic training.
British Youth Sailing EUROSAF Team members, Emily Hall and James Hatcher are using the RS:X Europeans are a stepping stone event as they prepare for the 2015 EUROSAF Youth European Championships in July, explained Hall: "I think this event will be a good tester to help me identify any further strengths and weaknesses as that I could begin to improve for the EUROSAF's event later this year that will help improve my performance.
"I will also begin to get an idea of what the other competitors will be like during the event."
Hall's main goal for the week is to work on her tactics: "I want to sail a consistent regatta, focusing on my tactics and general decisions during the race, as I believe this will be good preparation for Brest as the conditions can be inconsistent and shifty."
Racing alongside Hatcher in the 71-strong line up in the RS:X Youth Men division are British Youth Sailing squad members Dan Wilson and Andy Brown.
Competition begins on Monday 22 June, with three races scheduled per day until the final double points medal race scheduled for Saturday 27 June.
Regatta results will be available at www.rsxclass.com/europeans2015 with updates from the British Sailing Team, follow us at www.britishsailingteam.com