Windsurf / Press Release n.35 20 May 2005

XX Edition World Festival On The Beach
Palermo Mondello 11-22 May 2005

NICOLAS HUGUET AND BLANCA MANCHON ON TOP OF THE WORLD
Paco Wirz from Palermo gets the world Mistral masters title and Tartaglini gets bronze

The XXVII Mistral Class World Championships finished today in Mondello making Nicolas Huguet and Blanca Manchon the new champions of 2005. After the results in the past few days it was fairly obvious that they would win, they had excellent results day after day that brought them to hold the world titile. There has been a lot of gusty winds throughout the races, today the wind was coming from a north west direction and wasn’t as strong as yesterday (about 12-14 knots), and it characterised the one and only race held today for both categories.
The young Spanish girl Blanca Manchon never worried about the other contenders, she was at ease all through out the competition which lasted six days in Mondello.
On the podium with her there was also Amelie Lux from Kiel in Germany and Flavia Tartaglini from Italy, she won todays race. For the Italian athlete this was a high recognition after last years under 20 world championships held last year in Nessebar. The Isralian girl Lee Korzits came in 4th, after losing the race to Tartaglini.
In the mens category Nicolas Huguet won the world championships even if he was disqualified in todays race, The Brazilian Riccardo Santos “Bimba” came in first in todays race, taking second place on the podium and was only 4 points away from the gold medal. Andreas Cariolou from Cyprus, number 10 from the ISAF ranking list took 3rd place.
Riccardo Giordano continues to be the best Italian, finishing todays race in 4th place and coming in at 25th place in the overall results.
Along with the world title the under 20s were also going for the european title which was taken by Antoine Cordinnier from France in the mens category, followed by Juan Manuel Morena Vega from Spain in second place, and Shahar Tzuberi from Israel who one a medal last year in the youth world championships held last year in Bulgaria.
Blanca Manchon took not only the world title but also the european title, a climbing career for the young Spanish girl who came before Laura Linares in the under 20s, who finished at 18th place in world championships followed by Eugenie Ricard.
Paco Wirz from Palermo, came in at 36th place and winning the IMCO masters race beating Victor Ayvazyan from Russia and Giuseppe Castelli.
In the womans category Anna Galecka was the first to win her masters race, with Paula Newlands and Valeria Zullo behind her.
The best junior male in this Mistral World Championships was Richard Hamilton from Britain, who beat two Greek guys Alexander Giakas and Dimitris Vlahakis. Laura Linares closed coming in before Martina Fisco and Patricia Freitas.