China's Gold @ Qingdao International Marina

The eleven gold medal winning crews received their medals at a spectacular Closing Ceremony at the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center, after ten days’ of intensive, tight and exciting racing out on Fushan Bay. The list of gold medallists featured a host of Olympic and World Champions and world number ones, Qingdao has also sprung a few surprises, not least the performance of the host nation. While Chinese expectations had been buoyed by Lijia XU’s (CHN) recent win at the Laser Radial Worlds, the first ever gold medal for China in an Olympic Class Worlds, nobody could have predicted the hosts to end the regatta with five medals, including a gold for 17 year old Zhennan FANG (CHN) in the Men’s RS:X fleet.

Despite the obvious thrill of seeing the 49ers and the Tornado skimming across the waters of Fushan Bay, there was no doubting that a large part of the 10,000 strong crowd who brought tickets on the final day were there to cheer on the home hopes in the two RS:X fleets. In Athens, Jian YIN (CHN) inspired a whole generation of Chinese windsurfers when she won the silver medal. However, the sailor who beat her to gold two years ago, Faustine MERRET (FRA), was again to get the better of her rival to win gold in Qingdao. China were not to be denied in the men’s fleet though, as FANG showed remarkable maturity for someone still in their teens to close out overall victory in the Medal Race. Team mate Feng HE (CHN) also shone in front of the home support, finishing the Medal Race in third place to give China the top two spots on the podium.

Although the lighter conditions undeniably favoured their slighter frames, and they were sailing on their home waters, the three male Chinese windsurfers completed a remarkable performance. Counting only 15 ISAF Graded events between them they took three of the top four spots in a fleet which included Olympic, World, Youth World and European Champions.

Adding to the roll call of gold medallists were Nick ROGERS and Joe GLANFIELD (GBR) in the 470, who like AINSLIE were seemingly none the worse for almost a year out of the class, world number one Paul GOODISON (GBR) in the Laser, Andrew HORTON and Brad NICHOL (USA) in the Star, Olivier BACKES and Paul Ambroise SEVESTRE (FRA) in the Tornado and Mandy MULDER, Brechtje VAN DERWERF and Janneke HIN (NED) in the Yngling.

What all of these winners had in common was the consistency to keep on posting good scores, and the ability to bounce back from a bad day on the water. In a long regatta sailed in unfamiliar conditions and very high quality fleets, virtually nobody was able to escape a fair share of bad scores. Through the early stages many unfamiliar faces topped the leaderboards as the big names posted high scores early on, but the battle for honours in Qingdao was never going to be a sprint to the finish.

As the week progressed, the big stars gradually came back through the fleets, and by the time Qingdao blew a storm on the final day of the opening series, most of the established stars had secured themselves a place in the all important Medal Races. Of course, with so many big names some of them would have to miss out, and for many Qingdao literally was a test event. Particularly in the more technical classes there were some surprising absences at the top.

International Sailing Federation Web site. "Qingdao International Regatta 2006: Qingdao Delivers,"  01 September 2006.  <http://www.isaf.org/default.asp?ID=j17Fh?pC2&format=popup>.