By Oliver Bone, special to CTVOlympics.ca
The coastal town of Porto de Santa Maria in Cadiz, Spain has a long history in relation to sailing. From Christopher Columbus’ second voyage to the Americas to the 2003 International Sailing Federation’s World Championship. This year, the port is playing host to the RS:X Windsurfing World Championships, which is also serving as the Canadian Olympic team trials.
The 2012 RS:X World Championships will start racing on the 22nd of March with the Medal Race on 29th. Both the men’s and women’s fleets are full with 120 men and 80 women registered. The event is well represented with 46 nations in the men’s fleet and 37 in the women’s fleet. It is expected to be a challenging regatta, with the world’s best in attendance. Seeing as it is the last chance for national qualification for the London 2012 Olympics; nine remaining berths in the men’s fleet and seven in the women’s fleet are up for grabs. Canada has already secured their berth, but which athletes will actually be representing their country in London have yet to be decided. The top Canadian male and female athlete in Cadiz will be on the start line for the Olympics.
In the men’s fleet, two athletes, Zachary Plavsic from West Vancouver, British Columbia and David Hayes of Toronto, Ontario, will represent Canada in Spain. Both athletes have raised their games tremendously in over the past year. This is Plavsic’s second Olympic campaign, having represented Canada in Beijing 2008. Plasvic has been showing serious promise; finishing second in the fifth World Cup in Holland in 2011, and narrowly missing out on the top ten medal race at the 2011 World Championships, finishing 12th in a fleet of 91 for his best World’s result ever.
Olympic selection won’t come easily for Plavsic, as Hayes also achieved his best world’s results in 2011, finishing 31st. More notably Hayes finished fifth at this year’s second World Cup in Miami, although it must be noted that Plavsic was not present at the event.
Canada will be represented by three women in Spain; West Vancouver’s Nikola Girke, Trois-Rivieres, Quebec’s Dominique Vallee, and Montreal’s Laurence Bonneau-Charland. Girke is a veteran at dealing with the Olympic selection process. She represented Canada in the Women’s 470 class at the Athens 2004 Olympics and in the Women’s RS:X at the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Girke has had many top 5 finishes in individual races and has been flirting with the top ten medal race at a few of the World Cup events. Recently she opted to skip the Miami Olympic Class Regatta (MOCR) World Cup to compete at the 2012 South American Championships, where she took home the silver. She will be looking to make the medal race in Cadiz.
Vallee is also quite familiar to the pressures of Olympic selection, having campaigned for both the Athens and Beijing Olympics in women’s windsurfing. She narrowly missed out in 2004 and was beat by Girke in the 2008 trials. Vallee didn’t have her best event in the 2011 World Championships, finishing 47th of 68 racers, however she showed some serious improvement at MOCR by finishing in second place. Bonneau-Charland is a newcomer to the RS:X scene.
The weather for the week looks to be mixed, which could provide for interesting racing. All athletes are ready to bring their best performance.
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Oliver Bone is originally from Montreal but currently resides in Halifax. He competed for Canada in the 470 class at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
