PHOTOS AND VIDEO NATIONAL SAILING AWARDS 2022
The Monte Real Yacht Club hosted the gala of the National Sailing Awards
The awards sponsored by Terras Gauda wineries celebrate their thirtieth edition, rewarding the most outstanding sailors and teams on the Spanish nautical scene
Some of the most outstanding athletes on the Spanish nautical scene were honored this Saturday in Baiona at the National Sailing Awards gala, which were delivered at the Monte Real Club de Yates within the framework of the 37th Prince of Asturias Trophy.
In a club decorated for the occasion and in front of a crowd of spectators, José María “Pichu” Torcida, Nuria Sánchez, María Perelló, Marta Cardona, Javier Banderas, Piti Estébanez and Rafael Díaz went up on stage to collect their awards for best sailor , the best project, the best dinghy sailing team and the best boat. The only one who could not attend was the Spaniard Pablo Santurde, winner of the award for best sailor, whose tribute coincided with his wedding day.
Hosted by the Galician Television presenter, Carlos Macía; and the head of communication at Monte Real, Rosana Calvo; The event began with welcoming speeches by the president of the organizing club, José Luis Álvarez; and the president of Bodegas Terras Gauda, José María Fonseca Moretón, sponsor of the national awards. Both agreed to point out the importance of an event that celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and that throughout its history has served to recognize the successes of Spanish sailing.
After the welcome speeches, the winners followed one another on stage to collect their award. The first to do so was José María “Pichu” Torcida from Santander, who received the award for the best sailor for his victories in the Spanish and European J80 Championships. He thanked all those who accompanied him in the world of sailing for so long for the award. “Crew, owners, sponsors, family and especially my wife.” He had a souvenir also for his J70 crew, without which, he said, “This award would not have been possible.” And he ended by congratulating Monte Real for next year’s J80 World Championship and for the work it is doing to promote the J80 fleet.
The Mariano Aguado Communication Award went this year to the program “Atando Cabos” from the production company TacTic Audiovisual, and it was its director, Vicente Robles, who was in charge of collecting it. “After 20 years giving coverage and support to sailing, we thought that this sport did not have a specific program -said Robles- and thus Tying Cabos was born. And almost 200 shows later, what we’ve achieved has been amazing. This National Award is the icing on the cake”.
The next award of the night, for the best female project, was collected by Nuria Sánchez, for her initiative “We want to make history” , a proposal that, for years, has tried to spread and promote the figure of women in the world of sailing. In her speech, the sailor from Alicante said that they will continue working to be messengers of equality. “In these four years we have worked hard, creating and reaping the fruit that we are now. We involve the smallest, we bet on young promises and we also reach out to veterans and legends. And we can only thank all those who bet on us”, said.
With a sporting career spanning a quarter of a century behind them, the people from Malaga at the Teatro Soho Caixabank, led by Javier Banderas, collected the award for best ORC boat after achieving their sixth victory in the Copa del Rey. Accompanied by sports director Piti Estébanez and crew member Rafael Díaz, Banderas thanked Monte Real and Terras Gauda for an award that, he said, is the fruit of long experience. “The secret of our crew is that we have been sailing together for 25 years and it is now that we are reaping the rewards. It is a pride for all of us to collect this prestigious award in Baiona” .
The last prize of the night went to the youngest of the gala, the Majorcan sailors, 17 years old, María Perelló and Marta Cardona. They were distinguished by their gold medals in the World and European 420 class. “Values such as teamwork, the desire to excel, respect, perseverance, overcoming limits, self-discipline or responsibility are some of the values that make sailing for us more than just a sport, which be a whole lifestyle”, assured before concluding that “We have achieved many things this year, but we like to think that the best is yet to come”.
To this thirtieth edition of the National Sailing Awards, in addition to the presidents of the Monte Real Yacht Club and Terras Gauda wineries, organizer and sponsor of the event; the commanding director of the Naval Military School, Pedro Cardona; the territorial director of ABANCA, Walter Álvarez; the mayor of Baiona, Carlos Gómez; the territorial delegate of the Xunta de Galicia in Vigo, Marta Fernández-Tapias; the deputy for sports from the Pontevedra Provincial Council, Gorka Gómez, and the widow of Mariano Aguado, Pilar de Sas.
A display of fireworks and a party enlivened with live music put an end to the gala held within the framework of the Prince of Asturias Trophy, which will hold its final tests tomorrow, Sunday, and will crown its winners.
The women’s sailing project “We want to make history” is distinguished with one of the National Sailing Awards this year
· The initiative promoted by the sailor from Alicante Núria Sánchez and materialized in the Dorsia Covirán Sailing Team will receive the Terras Gauda National Sailing Award for the best female project
· The jury that awards the awards wanted to recognize the work of dissemination and promotion that the team is giving to the figure of women in the world of sailing through its many and different actions
The Terras Gauda National Sailing Awards ceremony will be held on September 3 at the Monte Real Yacht Club in Baiona as part of the program for the 37th Prince of Asturias Trophy
The women’s sailing project “We want to make history” has been honored this year with one of the Terras Gauda National Sailing Awards.
The initiative promoted and led by the sailor from Alicante Núria Sánchez and embodied in the Dorsia Covirán Sailing Team , will receive the award at a gala to be held on September 3 at the Monte Real Club de Yates de Baiona.
The jury that grants the distinctions wanted to recognize with the award for the Best Female Project the work of dissemination and promotion that the team is giving, through its multiple and different actions, to the figure of women in the world of sailing; as well as the values of equality and sportsmanship.
Nuria Sánchez, the double Olympic medalist Natalia Via-Dufresne, the also Olympic Susana Romero, María Torcida, Mar Gil and Martina Ruigomez.
In recent years they have become a clear benchmark for women’s sailing in Spain, the result of having accumulated some of the most prestigious trophies, such as the world runner-up, the Copa del Rey de Vela in the women’s category, the Spanish Championship women’s J80, the International Women’s Sailing Cup or the Women’s Sailing League, among others.
On their last visit to Baiona, where they will collect the National Sailing Award on September 3, the Dorsia Covirán girls won the Prince of Asturias Trophy, a title they will try to revalidate in this new edition.
TERRAS GAUDA NATIONAL SAILING AWARDS GALA
Saturday, September 3, 2022 8:00 p.m.
Monte Real Yacht Club (Baiona)
In the next few days the names of the rest of the winners will be revealed.
Xammar and Rodríguez, best Olympic team
The Terras Gauda National Sailing Awards recognize Jordi Xammar and Nico Rodríguez as the best Olympic team for the second consecutive year
· The bronze that the team made up of the Catalan and the Galician achieved at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has made them worthy of this new award
The athletes will go to Baiona on September 4 to collect the award and be honored at the gala organized by the Monte Real Yacht Club
Their youth, their effort and their enthusiasm predicted that the Terras Gauda National Sailing Award they received last year would not be the only one of their sports career, but possibly they themselves could not have imagined being able to repeat it so soon.
The Catalan Jordi Xammar (Barcelona, 1993) and the Galician Nico Rodríguez (Vigo, 1991) will receive a new National Sailing Award for the best Olympic team on September 4 at the Monte Real Club de Yates (Galicia).
The bronze medal that the men’s 470m crew achieved at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has made them worthy of the prestigious distinction for the second consecutive year, and both will be in Baiona to collect the award and receive tribute from the public.
Because the truth is that these young sailors do nothing but collect applause and admiration throughout the country, not only for their continuous chain of successes but also for their indisputable charisma.
In the last 5 years of preparation for the Olympics, they have been the most regular of the Spanish squad, managing to get on the podium of all the world and European championships played since 2017. They got the bronze in the 2017 European Championship and in the 2018 World Cup; silver at the 2019 European and World Championships, and bronze and silver at the 2021 World and European Championships.
Trained by Gideon Kliger and Juan María de la Fuente, they arrived in Japan at the top of the world ranking and turned Enoshima into their litmus test. The Japanese bronze medal was the perfect culmination of all the years of effort of a duo that destiny brought together in 2016, years after having met for the first time when both were sailing in Optimist.
Since their farewell to Tokyo through the front door and their entry into Spanish Olympic history, they have been deserving of multiple recognitions and expressions of admiration wherever they have passed.
In Baiona they will surely repeat applause and ovations. They received them a year ago when they collected their first Terras Gauda National Sailing Award and they will receive them, without a doubt, on September 4, at a gala to which both have already confirmed their attendance.
Spain SailGP Team will receive in Baiona the National Sailing Award for the innovative team and project
· The Spanish team that competes in the SailGP aboard the F50 Victoria catamaran is the youngest in the championship, the one with more Olympic athletes in its crew and the only one managed by a woman
· The award granted to them aims to recognize the boost they have given to the Spanish nautical scene by managing to include a national team in the championship and also ensuring that the competition lands in Spain
· Spain SailGP Team will receive the Terras Gauda National Sailing Award for the innovative team and project at a gala to be held in September at the Monte Real Club de Yates in Baiona (Galicia)
They are the youngest in the competition, the only ones to have a woman as CEO and the crew with the most Olympic athletes on board. This is, broadly speaking, the Spain SailGP Team, the Spanish team that competes in the SailGP aboard the F50 Victoria catamaran and that next September will receive the Terras Gauda National Sailing Award for the team and project in Baiona (Galicia). innovative.
In its ranks we find some of the most outstanding Spanish sailors of today. Eight men and two women with experience in the main international sailing competitions, such as the Olympic Games, The Ocean Race or the Youth’s America’s Cup. They are Jordi Xammar (rod), Phil Robertson (rod), Florian Trittel (mainsail trimmer), Diego Botin (flight controller), Mateu Barber (grinder), Joan Cardona (grinder), Ñeti Cuervas-Mons (grinder), Lucas Trittel (grinder), Tara Pacheco and Andrea Emone, the two women who have joined the “Women Pathway Program” created by SailGP for women.
At the head of all of them, the director of the team María del Mar de Ros, the only woman with a position of maximum leadership in the prestigious world competition. She will be the one in charge of collecting the award on the night of September 4 at the Monte Real Club de Yates, where in 2017 they received their first national award for another great project, the Spanish Impulse Team of the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup.
The Terras Gauda National Sailing Award for the team and innovative project aims to recognize the boost that the Spain SailGP Team has given to the Spanish nautical scene, not only for having managed to include a national team in this high-performance regatta, but also for having that the competition ends in Cádiz on October 9 and 10.
The second season of SailGP that is currently being held started last April in Bermuda and will end in March 2022 in San Francisco (USA). After passing through Plymouth (United Kingdom), Aarhus (Denmark) and Saint-Tropez (France), and before calling at Sydney (Australia), Christchurch (New Zealand) and San Francisco (USA), the competition will stop in Cadiz (October 9 and 10).
There, coinciding with the Puente de la Hispanidad and as part of the commemoration of the V Centenary of the First Voyage Around the World by Magellan and Elcano, we will be able to see what are considered the fastest ships on the planet, capable of exceeding speeds of 50 knots (100 km/ h). There will be two days of competition with three fast races that will add points towards the final victory, which will give the winning team a prize of 1 million dollars.
Didac Costa will receive the National Sailing Award for the best ocean sailor for his second solo round the world
This year, the Catalan athlete became the first Spanish sailor to circumnavigate the planet twice without stopovers or external help
· In the last Vendée Globe, considered the most extreme competition in nautical sport, it managed to circle the globe in less than 100 days
· With three round-the-world trips, two of them solo, this firefighter by profession, a fan of regatta, has entered the history of sailing on his own merits.
The Vendée Globe is, for many, the most extreme competition in the sport of sailing. It involves going around the world alone, without stops, assistance or external help, a challenge within the reach of very few and that even fewer have been able to complete as amateur sailors.
One of those prodigies of navigation is Didac Costa, a 40-year-old Catalan firefighter who in 2021 became part of the history of sailing in Spain by becoming the first Spaniard to circumnavigate the planet alone twice.
He did it aboard the IMOCA60 “One Planet One Ocean”, a 21-year-old monohull, 18 meters long and just over 5 meters wide, with which he traveled the 24,840 nautical miles (46,004 km) that entails circling the planet from west to this with departure and arrival in the French coastal town of Les Sables d’Olonne.
In the competition, which has been held every four years since 1989 and is one of the most followed nautical events in the world, 33 boats participated, of which only 25 managed to finish. Costa was the only Spaniard in the regatta and managed to complete the test in 97 days, 6 hours, 27 minutes and 3 seconds, lowering his previous mark (from the 2016-2017 edition) in 11 days.
Quite a success for a non-professional sailor who never sought to win, but rather to complete the greatest challenge in ocean sailing. He made up for the lack of resources, poor training, and the age of his ship with determination, bravery, determination, and courage. He coped with breakdowns and breakages but never gave up. And in less than 100 days since his departure, he managed to return to the starting point with a new dream fulfilled.
A new line was written in the history of sailing in Spain thanks to the feat of a man who began to dream of circumnavigating the planet when he was just a child, when his parents told him about José Luis de Urgarte, the Basque navigator who completed the regatta in 1993.
That dream began to take shape in 2014, when he became the youngest sailor to participate in the Barcelona World Race around the world with Aleix Gelabert. As happens with great adventurers, at the end of the race (in fourth position), Didac already had a new challenge in mind: the Vendée Globe, in which he would participate for the first time in 2016.
Without a sponsor to finance the project, having to take out a mortgage and with multiple problems from the start of the race, the sailor managed to finish it by crossing the finish line in fourteenth position. He became the second Spaniard to complete the course and the dreams continued to grow.
Didac was already thinking about a new edition of the Vendée Globe and in 2020 he re-enrolled in the competition that has allowed him to become the only Spaniard to finish the legendary French regatta twice and has earned him the Terras Gauda National Sailing Award for best ocean sailor, which will be awarded at a gala on September 4 at the Monte Real Club de Yates de Baiona (Galicia), within the framework of the 36th Prince of Asturias Trophy.
The National Sailing Awards recognize Joan Cardona as the best Olympic sailor
· The young Balearic athlete sealed his first participation in the Olympic Games with the bronze medal in the Finn class at Tokyo 2020
· With the Enoshima Cardona medal, he added one more line to a sports curriculum that includes victories in several European Championships
· The Terras Gauda National Sailing Awards gala will be held on September 4 in Baiona as part of the 36th Prince of Asturias Trophy
He was the youngest of the Spanish team and was the last to join the squad of sailors who attended Tokyo 2020 representing Spain, but neither one thing nor the other prevented him from achieving his long-awaited dream of hanging an Olympic medal around his neck.
At just 23 years old, the Balearic athlete Joan Cardona, signed one of the great successes for Spanish sailing in Enoshima with his bronze and the echo of that victory has allowed him to be the protagonist of multiple tributes since his return from the Japanese country.
The next one will be received on September 4 at the Monte Real Club de Yates de Baiona (Galicia), where the gala of the Terras Gauda National Sailing Awards will be held, in which Cardona will collect a new recognition, that of best Olympic sailor.
It will be one more line for a sports curriculum that Cardona began to write from the Mahon Maritime Club when he was just 6 years old, when his father instilled in him his passion for sailing. He debuted at the age of 14 as the youngest of the Princesa Sofía Trophy and his evolution has been constant since then.
With a lot of training, perseverance and determination, little by little he rose in the rankings of the international events he attended and in his last major competitions prior to the Olympic Games he won two golds (2019 and 2021 U23 European Championships) and two silvers (2021 European and World Championship).
He added podiums in some preliminaries that predicted the success that Cardona finally managed to make a reality in Enoshima with Finn’s bronze medal. “I have always been very clear that I wanted to do this in my life and I did not see myself in any other way; I have left many things aside, giving priority to sailing because it was my goal and I wanted to reach this day, make this dream come true”declared the Balearic after having fulfilled his childhood dream.
Echegoyen and Barceló, National Sailing Award for the best women’s team
· Támara Echegoyen and Paula Barceló will receive one of the National Sailing Awards on September 4 in Galicia for their brilliant career
· The Galician and the Balearic will be distinguished after having achieved the 49er FX world championship and more recently an Olympic diploma in Tokyo 2020
The gala of the National Sailing Awards will be organized one more year by the Monte Real Club de Yates de Baiona with the sponsorship of Terras Gauda
The Galician Támara Echegoyen (Ourense, 1984) and the Balearic Paula Barceló (Palma de Mallorca, 1996) will receive the Terras Gauda National Sailing Award for the best women’s team on September 4 in Baiona (Galicia).
The athletes will be honored for their brilliant careers and recent successes, including gold at the 49erFX world championship, achieved in February 2020 in Geelong (Australia); and the Olympic diploma they got just a few weeks ago at the Tokyo 2020 Games.
The Japanese Olympics were the third in a row for the already veteran of the Echegoyen Games (Gold in London 2012 together with Ángela Pumariega and Sofía Toro -in Elliot 6m- and Olympic Diploma in Rio 2016 together with Berta Betanzos -in 49erFX-) and the first for the young rookie Barceló, and despite having been on the verge of the Olympic medal, both showed their full potential as a team in Enoshima.
Echegoyen and Barceló have been sailing together for just 3 years, after the Spanish Sailing Federation made a selection of athletes to assemble Támara’s team when she was still participating in the Volvo Ocean Race. Although they experienced a reverse start to the usual (teams usually grow first and then choose a boat), the truth is that the rapport between the two emerged very soon and the Galician-Majorcan tandem, trained by the former youth world champion Víctor Payá, started to show results.
Hanging from a 49er (Olympic boat since Sydney 2000 weighing 130 kilos, almost 5 meters long, 2.90 wide and with three sails -main, jib and gennacker-), under the direction of Echegoyen as skipper and with the speed from Barceló as a crew member; the team achieved an Olympic place in Enoshima, became world champions in Australia and since then has not dropped from seventh place in all the events in which they participated, also being sixth in the world ranking. Their last great achievement: the Olympic diploma with which they returned from Tokyo.
The National Sailing Award that both will receive next September in Galicia will be the first for Barceló and the fifth for Echegoyen, who in 2012 received the award for the best pre-Olympic team, in 2013 for the sailor of the year, in 2016 for the best team of women’s regatta and in 2018 it was in charge of collecting the distinction awarded to MAPFRE as the best regatta team for its participation in The Ocean Race.
The gala of the Terras Gauda National Sailing Awards will be held at the Monte Real Club de Yates (Baiona), on the night of Saturday, September 4, within the framework of the 36th Prince of Asturias Trophy, which will be held on the 3rd, 4th and 5. Over the next few days, the names of the rest of the sailors and award-winning teams will be revealed.
