Brazilian sailors Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze won the 52nd edition of the Princess Sofia Trophy, one of the most traditional in Olympic sailing, held in Palma de Mallorca (Spain). They won, this Saturday (8), the last race of the 49erFX, the class in which they are the current two-time Olympic champions. The conquest crowned a campaign of regularity, with a decisive start in the final stretch.
In sailing competitions, participants receive points for each race – the better the placement, the lower the score. Martine and Kahena ended the dispute with 61 points, 15 less than the Dutch Odile Van Aanholt and Annette Duetz, world class champions. Argentina’s Maria Branz and Cecilia Saroli won bronze. The green and yellow partnership had already won the Princesa Sofia in 2019. Last year, they were silver.
The Brazilians occupied the seventh position after the first six disputes, having a second place as the best result, in the fifth stage. In the next six tests, there were two victories and a continuous presence in the top-10, taking the overall lead. They reached this Saturday’s regatta (also called “medal regatta”, with double points) and could be champions even if they finished sixth, but they secured the title with another victory.
“We realize that the new generations are coming in strong. We had interesting fights with some of them. the argentinians [Branz e Saroli] sailed very fast in some conditions, the Dutch [Van Aanholt e Duetz]… But, we reached our goal and accomplished what we planned. We were fast in the medal race and that allowed us to win. As a team, we have to be proud of ourselves”, commented Kahena to the official website of Princesa Sofia.
The event in Mallorca brought together 1,200 athletes from 67 countries, in eight categories. Brazil was represented by 21 sailors. The best result – aside from Martine and Kahena – was the 11th place of Bruno Lobo from Maranhão in Formula Kite, which will debut as an Olympic sailing class at the Games in Paris (France), next year.
The next event for Brazilian sailing is the French Olympic Week, between the 22nd and 29th of this month, in Hyeres. The main tournament of the season is the World Championship in The Hague (Netherlands), from 10 to 20 August. The competition will define vacancies for Paris.
Sailing is the second modality that brought the most Olympic medals to Brazil (19) and secured the most gold medals (eight). Since the bronze of Reinaldo Conrad and Burkhard Cordes, in the Mexico City Games, in 1968, Brazil has been a constant participation in the podium of the modality in the Olympics. Brazil was absent from the first three places only in the 1972 editions, in Munich (Germany); and 1992, in Barcelona (Spain).
