Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti (ITA), Pierre Le Coq (FRA) and Noga Geller (ISR) were crowned 2018 World Cup Champions after three Medal Races in Marseille, France.
After a series of delays and postponements, the wind started to stabilize at around 13:30, enabling the Nacra 17, Men’s RS:X and Women’s RS:X to sail in wind conditions that varied from 5-7 knots with differences over the race track.
On the eve of the Medal Race, Tita and Banti had a day they’ll never forget after they won all four of the races in the Nacra 17. This handed them a healthy advantage going into the Medal Race and, provided they kept Ben Saxton and Nicola Boniface (GBR), Vittorio Bissaro and Maelle Frascari (ITA) and Riley Gibbs and Louisa Chafee (USA) at bay, gold would be theirs.
As light breeze plagued the racing area, it took three starts before the fleet eventually got underway in fair conditions.
Tita and Banti kept out of trouble at the start and kept their rivals close, sailing through in sixth to give them another gold medal on the international stage. “It’s three events in a row where we have taken the gold medal,” said Tita. “It’s like when you do the ‘bottle flip’ – you can’t be certain whether you’ll be able to do the fourth one. It’s hard but we’re so pleased.”
Much like bottle flips, practice makes perfect and the Italians spent a considerable amount of time over the last 12 months training for moments like this. “We have good training partners, so the level of our training is high and we can compete at a top level together.
“We are pushing each other to do our best every time we sail and that is really important.”
Tita and Banti’s training partners Bissaro and Sicouri sailed through in second to confirm an Italian 1-2. Saxton and Boniface overhauled Gibbs and Chafee to win bronze.
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