2024 Finn Gold Cup at Sailing Aarhus - Overall
by Robert Deaves 7 Sep 2024 16:12 BST
31 August - 7 September 2024
Oskari Muhonen has become the first ever Finnish sailor to win the Finn Gold Cup. He has dominated this week in Aarhus in light and strong winds and shown great speed and tactics to become the undisputed Finn world champion for 2024.
Hungary's Doma Nemeth had his chances but in the end finished second, only beating Muhonen in one race. But as the leading U23 sailor here, he takes home the Finn Silver Cup, a title he has twice won and which Muhonen has won three times. Third place was a real battle with Italy's Alessandro Marega winning by one point over France's Valerian Lebrun.
However, the 2024 Finn Gold Cup was over without another race being sailed. The forecasts this week have been correct on only one day, and today the promised 8-12 knots disappeared in the heat, in what was a ridiculous hot day for September in Denmark. The wind tried to reappear but was very unstable in speed and direction, so racing was abandoned for the day just short of the time limit.
Muhonen said, "I am obviously very happy. I had a very solid week, I raced well in the lighter winds at the beginning of the week, but also some solid racing when it got windier, so I am very happy with my racing and with how the week went."
Coming into the event, "I was pretty confident in my downwind speed, but obviously upwind speed is always more of a question mark. I haven't been hiking much recently and have been sailing different classes, so it was harder to say, and I also don't have my own mast so that was a bit stiffer than I was used to sail with. But it was all right."
On the competition. "It was really good. It's always nice to have more than 100 boats on the start line. The first Gold Cup I did was in 2017 on Balaton and that had more than 100 boats. Aarhus is nice place to sail, with a variety of conditions but was a bit unstable at times."
Will he defend next year, "Maybe. We'll see."
Marega said, "Four words; I am super happy. We had a beautiful week of sailing and I must congratulate the others on the podium, they deserved their position and I am grateful to be sharing the podium with them. I'll be back for Cannes, for the Europeans and for the Italian Nationals in Rimini."
There has been a lot of talk about class development this week and it is encouraging to see so many younger sailors competing here. This will be the last Finn Silver Cup for the U23 age category. Following a unanimous AGM decision earlier this week, next year it is transitioning to U29, to include a wider range of sailors. This week in Aarhus, there were 20 sailors under 30 years old, a huge improvement in recent years and this trend is expected to continue. The young sailors here formed a close cooperation and are now actively driving what they want from the class.
Doma Nemeth was the runaway winner of the last ever U23 Silver Cup, a title he last won in 2022. Second place went to Australia's Jack Eickmeyer, who was supported via funding from the International Finn Association of Australia via its Silver Cup Fund, which the class there has set up to support young sailors. They plan to send another young sailor next year, and many national associations are looking at ways to establish similar initiatives, which is very positive news. Third place went to Hungary's Attila Svastits.
Nemeth said, "I feel really good. We had such a long day today on the water and it was such a long regatta and I am pretty happy. I had a bit of a hard day two days ago, but then I managed to recover very well. Yesterday we had an amazing day, with incredible wind and waves. Oskari was really hard to catch. I learnt a lot and I see where I can improve more, so I am pretty happy about it. I am 22 now, so looks like I have some more youth years ahead of me, so yeah, you'll see me soon."
Having tried a 49er campaign, he stopped as he could not lose enough weight healthily. "I am actually not as large as I was, but I like it like this as I am fast. I would like to do more Finn sailing. I am not training that much anymore. But I am really happy how I continued to improve my sailing by not sailing Finn, but sailing the Finn is still good for me."
A huge thanks to Sailing Aarhus and the Aarhus International Sailing Center for hosting an excellent and well-run championship. The fabulous facility was the perfect venue, and perfect host for the sailors from across the world. Next year the Finn Gold Cup heads back to Cascais, Portugal, for the third time.
Overall Results: (top ten, 7 races)
1 FIN 8 Oskari MUHONEN 7pts
2 HUN 80 (U23) Domonkos NÉMETH 15pts
3 ITA 1103 Alessandro MAREGA 23pts
4 FRA 111 Valérian LEBRUN 24pts
5 ITA 40 Marko KOLIC 47pts
6 GBR 5 Cameron TWEEDLE 48pts
7 ESP 161 Miguel FERNÁNDEZ VASCO 51pts
8 NOR 5 Lars Johan BRODTKORB 52pts
9 GER 711 André BUDZIEN 52pts
10 FRA 75 Laurent HAY 59pts