Sofía racers head into final chance to make Saturday's medal finale
Day 4 of the 55th Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca by FERGUS Hotels continued with the offshore, unpredictable winds which have continued to confound athletes as the showcase Olympic regatta heads into the penultimate day, Friday. Once more competitors had to deal with periods of near calm interspersed with gusts of over 20 knots, sometimes on the same race track.
Price is right….
In the 49er Skiff class the lead has alternated between top duos from the USA and Australia who spent time training together within a big group working out of Torbay, north of Auckland. After today’s three Elimination Series races it is Sydney’s Harry Price and Max Paul who are into their second season together who lead by three points. The pair joined up as friends and champions from the same 18ft Skiff, Price confirming they have come a long way since last year’s Sofía where they finished 31st.
They won the day’s first heat and finished second in the next to overhaul their American counterparts Nevin Snow and Ian MacDiarmid who held the overnight lead.
Sixth last year at only their first regatta together Snow and MacDiarmid are intent on matching or improving on the 2024 Paris bronze medal of friends Ian Barrows and Hans Henken who in Marseilles delivered the USA’s first sailing medal since 2016.
Snow highlights, “One of the reasons I have stuck with this is that my friends won a medal at the last Games and I want what they now have. I was not that far behind them, I know that. And to see them finish with a medal means we keep going. And for me the Olympics in Los Angeles is all but a home games, I grew up in San Diego and it is not that far away.”
He adds, “We had our first tough race of the regatta today. We got on the wrong side of a shift and struggled to get our way out of it. But we are generally happy. You have to have a short memory after a day like today. So we put it behind us and go and have a good coffee in Palma and get ready for tomorrow. We were all in New Zealand training together at Torbay Beach north of Auckland. We had 15 or 20 boats it was a great training group and we had amazing conditions.” Ve
Price, who has taken to the Olympic trail after a successes in the 18 footer as well as Match Racing, remains objective about leading the regatta into the penultimate day, indeed he admits he did not even know the Medal Race finale has changed until he was told a couple of days ago.
He grinned, “I did not even know there was a new format until yesterday, someone told me! This is my first time up here near the front of the fleet so I am happy either way. If you had a big lead you’d be against it (the two race, single points medal final). But we have to keep the racing tight and exciting and keep the fans happy. We take it day by day. We are happy to be going how we are going at the moment but there is still plenty to be working on. We need to be more comfortable in the boat. It is nice to pick the shifts but holding a tight lane and grinding it out is what this fleet is all about. With it being so shifty it is actually hard to determine how this fleet is and where we are, you can get ahead but you can get behind just as easily.”
Spain lead in the 49erFX and the 470 Mixed
In the Women’s Skiff, local Arenal helm Paula Barceló and Canarian Maria Cantero have earned a slender, one point lead after a consistent 7-5-7 day achieved in the shifty conditions, narrowly ahead of Canada’s Georgia and Antonia Lewin-Lafrance.
Barceló, who lives minutes from the Arenal club but lives this week at the team hotel, said: “ We had super unstable conditions with a different wind in every race. We managed to stay consistent all day by not taking too many risks—not going off looking for big gains in so doing avoiding losses. In the end, I think that strategy really paid off.”
Their World Champion compatriots in the 470 Mixed dinghy Jordi Xammar and Marta Cardona retain a ten points cushion with two more Elimination Series races scheduled Sunday. Last year’s winners, recently crowned European Champions, Martin Wrigley and Bettine Harris (GBR), are chasing hard.
Wrigley recalled, “We won the first race and in the second race we dropped badly. First race the breeze had just filled in from the new direction, we got a good start and controlled it from there. The second race just got away from us, we don’t really know what happened.”
“There is still a long way to go in this regatta. With two races to go in these kind of conditions, possibly light offshore tomorrow. Anything can happen.”
In the ILCA 7 fleet the double Olympic champion Matt Wearn (AUS) bookended a pair of wins with a 26th which he discards meaning he leads into Friday by 11 points ahead of Germany’s rising star, Under 21 World Champion Ole Schweckendiek. And in the ILCA 6 Belgium’s Emma Plasschaert continues to top the standings. And in the Nacra 17s it is still the consistent Swedish duo Emil Järudd and Hanna Jonsson, who have led since the first day.
Lyons leading
Noah Lyons (USA) has displaced previous leader Duncan Monaghan (GBR) at the top of the iQFOiL Men’s windsurfer standings after a mostly good afternoon on the water. Unlike most competitors, Lyons embraces the tricky, gusty, shifty stuff. “I feel that I’m doing well in the tricky, gusty, shifty conditions,” said the man from Florida. “I think that’s my strength for sure.” Lyons excelled in the upwind sprints, scoring two wins and a fifth from the three heats. “Yes, that went really well, but the course race... not so much,” laughed Lyons about his 21st in the longer race. “Luckily I've been consistent enough that I was able to drop that course race and still have a decent day.”
Poland’s Anastasiya Valkevich continues to sit at the top of the leaderboard in the Women’s iQFOiL. “It was quite a tricky day on our race course, very shifty and variable winds,” she said. “We did four races, the upwind sprint format, really quick races. I had some good scores in all of them, so I think I’m doing enough to stay at the top. It’s nice to be back racing, and seeing everyone else in the fleet. It’s good fun on the water and hanging out on shore too.”
Kite world champs in control, perfect Kampman counts nine wins
In Formula Kite, the dominant world champion Jessie Kampman won three of her four races and counts a perfect scoreline of nine first places. The Dutch rider came a cropper in the other one. “The wind holes were crazy,” she said. “I could see people’s kites beginning to flutter to the water in a big lull, and on the other side a big gust hitting the course. I got this big surge from the gust and I crashed, so not easy out there at all.”
Lauriane Nolot is lying in second place, and the France’s Olympic silver medallist is another athlete struggling to make sense of an unusually unpredictable Bay of Palma this week. “We did the first two races in an offshore wind, which was so gusty and shifty,” she said. “Normally I would tack four times in one race; today I think I was doing 20. But then the wind shifted 90 degrees and the wind was cross-shore which was pretty nice. I’m missing a bit of speed compared with the Paris 2024 cycle, because I’m not as heavy now, but I’m trying to make up for that with better tactics and race management and I’m pretty happy how things are going.”
In the Men's cathegory, Ricardo Pianosi had a pretty bad day by his high standards, with scores of 20 and 15 bookended by a 3 to start and a 2 to finish. “Today was not the best today,” smiled Italy’s reigning World Champion. “But the rest of the week was good. I am still in the lead and I feel like my winter training in Cagliari is paying off. Today, though, the wind was hard to read and it as very unstable, which made it not the easiest day for interpreting the conditions.”
Former World Champion from Singapore Max Maeder sits in second place behind Pianosi, with Valentin Bontus (AUT) in third. The Olympic Champion from Austria last competed at last year’s edition of the Sofía and a week later badly injured his knee in a skiing accident. This week is his first competition for a year, so he’s happy to find himself in third place after winning two of today’s four races. “I’m here to enjoy myself, not put too much pressure on myself for results, but it’s actually going pretty well,” he said.
The 55th Trofeo Princesa Sofia Mallorca by FERGUS Hotels is organised by Bahía Activa — the foundation formed by the Real Club Náutico de Palma, the Club Nàutic S'Arenal, the Club Marítimo San Antonio de la Playa and the Balearic Sailing Federation — and is supported by World Sailing. The event is co-financed by the Balearic Islands Government’s Sustainable Tourism Tax fund and sponsored by the Mallorca Responsible Tourism Foundation.
The 55th Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca by FERGUS Hotels is part of the Sailing Grand Slam 2026 alongside the Semaine Olympique Française, Dutch Water Week, Kieler Woche and Long Beach & San Pedro Olympic Classes Regatta.
