French Olympic Week Sets Sail in Hyères

The 56th edition of French Olympic Week (Semaine Olympique Française de Hyères – Toulon Provence Méditerranée) began in classic Côte d’Azur conditions as 729 competitors from 56 nations started six days of racing. All ten fleets managed the full programme of 31 races in building offshore westerlies as Hyères was bathed in unending sunshine.

After hosing the highest level of sailing for over half a century, Hyères has seen every arc of the Olympic wheel and in the year after Paris 2024 it is a time when new stars shine and old hands take note.

“Yes! Best day ever! Oh dear, don’t put that down,” Britain’s Eleanor Keers & Jess Jobson said laughing in the boat park when asked if it was their best performance in a senior Women’s FX regatta. It was the kind of raw excitement that makes this event so kinetic.

“It was just our first time senior racing in those conditions. And in Palma, we started off the first day, first race leading on the mark and then we lost it on the first downwind, so to actually manage to hold it was really felt really good. It felt like a good comeback.”

Nacra 17 (mixed double-handed catamaran)
Three races today

Italy continue to underline their incredible strength and depth in the mixed multihull. Gianluigi Ugolini & Maria Giubilei (14, 2, 1 in the three races), lead after finishing on a high (and discarding a difficult first race) from the most consistent boat in the fleet, the Austria duo of Laura Farese & Matthäus Zöchling (2, 1, 2).

Ugolini & Giubilei are far from new stars, as they pushed their training partners –  Italy’s double Olympic champions, Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti – all the way for selection for Paris 2024, but this is their cycle to step in the sunshine.

Gianluigi Ugolini & Maria Giubilei (ITA):“With the discard, yes we are (leading). The second and third race were good for us; in the first one, unfortunately, we took our plastic bag on the foil on the second part of the first upwind. So, we were out from the game of the head group. In the last race, we had a bad start, but we made a good upwind piece, found a good channel, and expressed the pressure we had.
It’s only the first day but we’re happy to see what’s next.

It was much lighter than we expected, the first race it dropped to seven knots. It was about 14 and it was building up by the end.

Maybe tomorrow will be not so strong, but yes. strong week. We like strong wing, and we hope for strong wind.”

Laura Farese & Matthäus Zöchling (AUT) :“In the second and the third race we were in a really close fight with Gigi and Maria, and it was always like, one boat ahead, one both length. We managed to win the second, they managed to win the third. I think the two of us were kind of ahead of the fleet.
I think in the end, we had really nice conditions. We managed three races with good breeze, all in control [laughing]. If it’s 10 knots or above, it’s always upwind foiling.”

49er (men’s and women’s double-handed skiff)
Women’s FX
Three races today

Belgium’s Isaura Maenhaut & Anouk Geerts (6, 14, 1) moved into the lead after winning the third and last race of the day, but the two-time Olympians had a new rival on their radar as the emerging British duo of Eleanor Keers & Jess Jobson put together the most consistent racing of day with three top ten finishes (1, 7, 8).

Isaura Maenhaut & Anouk Geerts (BEL) : “The focus was it’s a really big fleet, so we had to get out of the big group, and in the last race we managed to get to the outside first. It’s such a big group, it’s hard, as soon as one small thing goes wrong, you get like kind of sucked to the middle of the group and then it gets more complicated, and there’s not so many clear lanes anymore. So, I think it’s a closer racing than what we’re used to.

It’s the first year (after the last Olympics), so I think some people are maybe not returning yet from the Olympics.

There’s a lot of new faces, teams are out training full-time, the whole series, I think, which is nice to see it. And there’s a lot of young talent coming up also. So it’s quite good racing.

I think we’ve seen that they (The British duo in second) had like a really good day and they’re coming up.

Eleanor Keers & Jess Jobson (GBR) : “The wind built from the first race a little bit – 10 knots building up to 14 – it’s kind of like Portland Harbour, which is where we train – so a good day for British crews,” Keers & Jobson said.

Men’s 49er
Three races today

USA’s duo of Nevin Snow & Ian MacDiarmid (2, 10, 1) beat Britain’s Elliott Wells & Billy Vennis-Ozanne (19, 1, 2) into second place in the final race of the day and on the overall leaderboard.

470 (mixed double-handed dinghy)
Two races today

Germany’s duo of Simon Diesch & Anna Markfort (4, 1) lead after winning the second race of the day. Spain’s Olympic bronze medallist at Tokyo 2020 (2021), Jordi Xammar, won the first race with his new teammate, Marta Cardona Alcántara, and they lie fourth overall after an eighth place in the second race. Ahead of them in third are another coming force, France’s Matisse Pacaud and Lucie de Gennes from just down the road at the Yacht Club de Cannes. They are three-time Youth World Champions (2022, 2023, 2024) and were training partners for France’s 2024 Olympians Camille Lecointre and Jérémie Mion.

ILCA 6 and 7 – (women’s & men’s solo dinghy)
The biggest fleet of boats in the regatta with 112 ILCA 7 and 76 ILCA 6.

ILCA 7
Two races today

After starting two hours after the men, the women enjoyed the more invigorating conditions, with both races having started after 15:00 (CET). Anna Munch (1, 1) continued Denmark’s powerful record in this class with victory in both races in her fleet and was matched by USA’s Charlotte Rose, who won both hers in the other fleet, holding off Belgium’s two-time world champion, Emma Plasschaert.

ILCA 6
Two races today

The top three overall spots are all taken by the more consistent leaders of the yellow group. Duko Bos (1, 3) leads after two races, ahead of Montenegro’s Milivoj Dukic (4, 4) and Croatia’s Filip Jurisic (8, 1). Results in blue group were much more varied!

iQFOiL  (men’s & women’s windsurfing)

Women
Four races today

Israel underlined their strength and depth in the women’s windfoil with three of the top four in the lead overnight. Tamar Steinberg (4, 1, 1, 1) won the last three rounds and Shabar Tibi (5, 2, 5, 3) kept Israel’s Paris 2024 Olympic silver medallist, Sharon Kantor (18, 3, 3,4) in fourth. Only  China’s Zheng Yan (1, 4, 2, 16) in second divided them.

Men
Four races today

Grae Morris (3, 1, 2, 2), Australia’s Paris 2024 Olympic silver medallist leads overnight across the two groups from Poland’s Pawel Tarnowski (3, 3, 1, 6) with France’s Clément Bourgeois (1, 1, 6, 11)  in third and Louis Pignolet in fourth (1, 9, 2, 10).

Louis Pignolet (FRA) : “The first two Slalom rounds were complicated while the wind picked up. Then the wind filled in, and we had two Races. I’m happy with my result: a heat win in Slalom and a second-place finish in one Race. The level is very high, and there’s plenty to fight for.”

Formula Kite (men’s and women’s kite)

Women
Four races today

Britain’s Lily Young (2, 1, 2, 4) leads from Wan Li (1, 5, 4, 1), one of three Chinese racers in the top five. Poland’s Izabela Satrjan (5, 10, 1, 2)  is in second.

Hyères and France’s local hero, Lauriane Nolot, making her competitive return after a silver medal at Paris 2024 is seventh (4, 7, 8, 8).

Men
Four races today

With the fleet of 60 racers split into two fleet, the 18-year-old Singaporean, Maximilian Maeder, the winner of SOF 2022 at the age of 15 and a bronze medalist at Paris 2024, dominated the yellow group (1, 1, 4, 2), but was bettered by Italy’s Riccardo Pianosi (1, 1, 1, 2) who won the first three races in blue group.