Few sailors, no matter how magnificent their achievements, can claim to have appeared on one their nation’s stamps. Possibly the only person having achieved this ultimate accolade is Pavlos Kontides, the young Cypriot sailor who at London 2012 scored silver in the Laser behind Australian titan Tom Slingsby. In doing so he became not only Cyprus’ first ever Olympic sailing medallist, but their first Olympic medallist ever, in any sport.
Since then Kontides has amply proven that his medal was no fluke. At the Hempel Sailing World Championships Aarhus 2018, he secured Laser World Championship victory despite intense competition and having a target on his back as the defending World Champion.
“Aarhus was a major goal for the year,” explains Kontides, now 28. “It was the first Olympic qualifier and for everybody it was the ultimate event of 2018 so everyone was fully prepared. Going there as defending champion, I knew it would be hard and people would want to beat me, but, like always, I tried to do my best and it paid off.”
Despite New Zealand's Sam Meech getting off to the best start within the three groups, securing three consecutive bullets followed by a second, Australians were overcrowding the upper echelons of the leaderboard and it was Matthew Wearn who led into the Finals ahead of Meech with Kontides third. However this wasn’t the full story as consistency was especially vital due to there being fewer discards than there usually are at Laser World Championships (being a World Sailing, rather than a class-run event). “With only one discard it was really important to keep low scoring until the end,” Kontides advises. “It was important to not make any big mistake because then you couldn’t make any mistakes in the Finals.” Going into the Finals neither Wearn nor Kontides had scored a result out of the top eight, and still with an ace up their sleeve in having the option to discard a deep result should it occur.
Kontides finally gained the lead overall after the penultimate race, the last race of the Finals ending up as his discard – a 14th, an impressive performance in a 165 boat fleet. Importantly he was ahead of Matthew Wearn, but only by four points. Come the double points-scoring medal race, all the Australian had to do was to finish ahead of Kontides, with a boat between them, to prise the title off him. This so nearly came to pass…
Kontides recounted his race: “I tried to stay close to him, but it was very tricky to match race him because it was blowing, and it was gusty and shifty and that created a lot of opportunities to escape if you were being chased. I think I did a good job in the pre-start because we were both near the committee boat, even though there was huge bias at the pin end. We tacked straight away and at some stage upwind with the shifts he managed to escape and at that moment I was losing the Championship… But I knew that nothing was finished until the end, so I kept my concentration, kept on pushing and tried to stay close to him and keep my options open.” He rounded the top mark in ninth with Wearn sixth, 19 seconds ahead, but come the second upwind had dropped to last although he had reduced his time deficit on Wearn to 13 seconds. Finally on this leg Kontides made gains and by the second top mark rounding was back in direct contention with his rival, ultimately finishing ninth to Wearn’s eight to retain the World title. This result was particularly sweet marking the anniversary of Kontides’ second Youth World title, also won in Aarhus, 10 years earlier.
So a nailbiter? “You feel much more nervous watching it rather than being part of it! You just have to stick to your routines and your habits and what you do best and try and not think about the end result,” advises Kontides.
From Aarhus, Kontides goes to Enoshima, the sailing venue for Tokyo 2020 where the first round of the new season’s World Cup Series takes place this month. At present in the Laser fleet, Kontides reckons around 15 sailors are capable of winning, but at present these were littered with talented Brits, Kiwis and Australians, and this field will be thinning out once individual sailors are chosen to represent their countries. This could see a change in line-up compared to Rio 2016. For example in finishing second in Aarhus, Matthew Wearn beat his teammate Tom Burton, the defending Olympic champion in the Laser. Fortunately for Kontides he has no such threats with Cyprus now qualified and long term RS:X sailor Andreas Cariolou being Cyprus’ only other sailing athlete. However Kontides’ profile in Cyprus today and repeated requests to go and speak to children, is helping to inspire the next generation of Cypriot sailors.
“I hope that my achievements inspire them,” he says. “I get invited to go and speak to schools. Usually they seem to love it, their concentration is good and the feedback I get from their teachers is positive. I am very blessed that I can do that. I hope that I can help them as well.”
One of the keys to Kontides’ success is his training regime, which for more than a decade now has been ‘Croatian’, with Tonči Stipanović (fourth to him at London 2012) with their long term coach Jozo Jakelic. Hungarian and Russian Laser sailors have since joined their group.
Thanks to his success, Kontides previously competed in the Star Sailors League Finals in 2015. “Michel [Niklaus, Founder and Owner of the Star Sailors League] has a dream and a passion and he was able to make this fantastic event a reality. Last time it was a great experience and I met Paul Cayard and Jochen Schueman, who are both legends of our sport. It was a great opportunity for me to compete against them - that kind of thing you just can’t find anywhere else. So Michel’s idea is fantastic and I hope that it will be more embraced in the future and it can achieve a higher audience and be self-sustaining in terms of sponsorship and endorsement.”
In 2015 he raced with American legend Mark Strube as his crew, finishing 16th, but ahead of the then Star World Champion Robert Stanjek. That was, for Nassau, an also unusually light wind event, which Kontides believes makes it harder for those with less experience in the Star boat.
For he has yet to get his crew sorted out for this year’s event: “If you’re not that familiar with the Star, it is crucial to have someone who can trim the boat in the best possible way to maximise the performance so the only thing I have to worry about is my steering and my strategy – pretty much like I do in the Laser…!”
The crew also brings technical know-how as the Star boat is substantially more complex than the Laser. Kontides is a fan: “It is amazing. It teaches you so many things about sailing like changing the format of the rig, the mast and forestay, backstay - changing the shape of the sails to your needs. Although a lot of people think it is a keelboat and not sensitive, in fact it is very sensitive like a dinghy. Every small movement makes a difference.”
Laser Olympic medallist Paul Goodison winning the Star Sailors League Finals in 2017, has been an inspiration for Kontides. “It was really nice for the sport to see someone from outside of the Star class win it. I know that Goodie did some training before, but what he did is not comparable with the years that the Star sailors spend speed testing and training. But the format of racing at the Star Sailor League Finals really allows everyone to be competitive, because the races are shorter than they are at the Star World Championship and starts are really crucial.”
However among present Olympic sailors he reckons Finn sailors still have the advantage as they are typically closer to 100kg, which can get them closer to the 200kg combined weight and because of their free pumping skills permitted at times in the Finns and in the Stars.
Maybe 2018 will be the year that one of the youngsters like Kontides can defeat the old guard.
By James Boyd - Sailing Intelligence
SSL Press Officer since 2015