ILCA World Championships

Despite high COVID cases and constraints the 2021 ILCA World Championships have so far been able to run and attract near capacity competitors. Over 800 sailors have competed in the Youth (4.7 and Radial) and the Under 21 Worlds in Europe. ILCA did a great job to pull this off.

You have to admire the tenacity of these young sailors navigating COVID exit and entry restrictions and travel difficulties just to be able to compete in these events.

Unfortunately due to Australia’s foreign travel ban no Australian sailors have been able to compete in these Youth Worlds events however Australian sailing managed to send two sailors to Under 21 Worlds and are sending Australian Sailing Squad members to the Radial Women’s Worlds in Oman in December and the Men’s Standard Worlds in Barcelona in November.

The sole Australian, Zac Littlewood from WA, had a dominant win in the 134 boat fleet in the just completed Under 21 World Championship in Gdynia Poland. Zac posted 5 wins and 2 seconds to win by 23 points. Top Australian Under 21 Women ILCA6 sailor Paige Caldecoat represented us in the U21 Women’s event in Gdynia finishing a creditable 18th in the 57 boat fleet. The full results are Men Women.

Travel bans look likely to persist for this year and in any event travel costs are through the roof, so the prospect of Australian sailors competing in the World Masters (Barcelona, November) are bleak. There are 260 entries for the Masters event which in better times might have been near the 400 entry limit.

ILCA have announced timing and venues for 2022 World Championships (except for ILCA6 Youth Worlds). Listing of the events is on the ILCA’s web site Here. Australian sailors will hopefully be free to travel to these 2022 events.