Against the Odds – Ghio and Spanu Shine
Contrary to all the forecasts, the sun shone and the local Maloja breeze blew up to 15 knots to give us an incident-filled final day of opening races.
The day did not start well for the Frenchman who crashed into his brother Romain during the first race.
“It was very unfortunate. I didn’t hear him. I was on port tack, he was on starboard”, explained Ghio.
Having accepted fault for the incident, the World Cup defending champion retired from the race.
Mathis regained his composure to finish top rider and claim his place in tomorrow’s Grand Final. He’ll face his old rival Kamil Manowiecki of Poland who overcame a virus earlier in the event to also qualify. .
The Women’s defending champion also had to overcome adversity. Maddalena Spanu was forced to watch her considerable event lead slowly shrink as wind holes and collisions forced her to miss three races.
Like Ghio in the Men’s competition, the Italian proved her mental strength to win the last two races of the day and qualify for the grand final.
Spanu’s compatriot Marta Monge took advantage of Spanu’s troubles with a series of strong results to claim the final spot – Italy’s second – in the women’s Grand Final.
There was a battle to the end to make the cut for the Men’s Medal Series with just 9 points separating seventh and tenth place. In the end it was France’s Julien Rattotti who snatched ninth spot behind Hawaiian JP Lattanzi. .
The biggest smile of the day belonged to Great Britain’s Freddie Strawson who not only got his first ever race win in the World Cup Series but finished sixth overall to qualify for the Medal Series.
For the men who didn’t qualify today there is one last chance on Saturday in the ‘Golden Ticket’ race. The concept is simple; the winner of one single long-distance race goes through to the medal series.
