The 2024 49er and 49erFX World Championships officially kicked off in the beautiful and windy Lanzarote, Canary islands yesterday. There are 126 teams from 36 nations in Lanzarote to fight for the 49er and 49er FX World Championship title.
The Olympic skiff Championships will unfold with an Opening Series and a Medal Race—a single race featuring the top 10 sailors, where points are doubled. Today the conditions on the different courses also varied substantially. There was light moderate breeze on the Papagayo Course while the Fleets on the Lighthouse Course saw strong winds and big waves.
The Chinese team of Xiaoyu Hu and Mengyuan Shan are currently leading the FX fleet, followed by Odile van Aanholt and Annette Duetz (NED) and last on the podium the Italian team of Jana Germani and Giorgia Bertuzzi.
Although Mollerus and McDiarmid (USA) & Grummett and Hawes (GBR) did not qualify for this year's Olympics, they are pushing on with their skiff campaign towards Los Angeles 2028. At the end of three races it has been a good day for the Americans in top spot by a point ahead of defending World Champions from The Netherlands, Bart Lambriex and Floris van der Werken with the British team in third.
It’s a similar forecast of northerly offshore breeze for today, so we can expect some changes on the leaderboard.