Finn heroes gather in Scarlino

Robert Deaves has a look at the form book for the Finn Europeans starting next week

The final international Finn class championship prior to the Olympic regatta later this summer is due to take place at Scarlino in Italy next week, from May 2-10. Despite most countries having already finalised their trials for China, there are 93 pre-entries from 30 countries. As is traditional the event also features the Junior European Championship and this year the growth of the junior fleet continues with 19 sailors from 11 countries taking part, including many new faces. The line up also includes a growing number of new sailors finding their footing in the Finn class with an encouraging four entries apiece from Serbia and Ukraine and five from Russia.

The racing is being hosted by the Club Nautico Scarlino. This modern club is located in the La Marina di Scarlino, a brand new marina in the Gulf of Follonica, Maremma, Tuscany. This venue is about half way between Rome and Pisa on Italy's western coastline. The course area for the championship is within spitting distance of the famous Bonaparte retreat, Elba, but the sailors will not be thinking about taking prisoners this year, but rather looking to stamp their authority at a crucial point in the campaign for gold in China.

In the final medal race of the Gold Cup earlier this year in Melbourne, Ben Ainslie (GBR) had the unusual pleasure of having to actually race in order to win the series. In doing so he narrowly beat Dan Slater (NZL) to take his fifth Finn world title, the first person ever to do so. A few weeks later it was back to business as normal though after he had wrapped up the Princess Sofia Regatta before the final race. Having skipped Hyeres, Ainslie will be looking to take yet another title in Italy and further demoralise his fellow sailors. However to do that he will have a hard battle ahead, and I would venture again to say that it is not a foregone conclusion. Although Ainslie is the obvious choice for headline material, there are plenty of others with hatchets in hand ready to knock the Brit off the top spot. There are many possible contenders.

Ainslie's vanquished arch rival for the Qingdao berth and the 2006 European Champion, Ed Wright (GBR) is back for more. Clearly not discouraged by losing out to Ainslie this time, he already seems to have refocussed on 2012 and his second place in Hyeres proves he has lost none of his edge.

Despite recently completing two years at the top of the ISAF World Ranking List, Jonas Høgh-Christensen (DEN) has won few major events in that time. A bronze at this year's Finn Gold Cup is the closest he has got to a major title since winning that event in 2006. However a win in Hyeres last week must be a useful confidence boost just before a major title is at stake.

The defending champion is of course Eduard Skornyakov (RUS). However he has never really reproduced the form that made him the surprise winner last year on Lake Bataton, and had to wait until this year's Finn Gold Cup to perform sufficiently well to qualify Russia for a place in China. He managed a 14th in Hyeres, and that is really his best result since last year's Europeans.

Other likely contenders include second in Palma, Ivan Kljakovich Gaspic (CRO), third in Hyeres Gasper Vincec (SLO), runner up at last year's Finn Gold Cup Pieter-Jan Postma (NED), Slater, 2004 silver medalist and 2007 world champion Rafael Trujillo (ESP) and 2001 European champion Emilios Papathanasiou (GRE), although such is the depth of the Finn fleet at the moment, that any of another 20 sailors is quite capable of winning individual races. However, many sailors have reduced their sailing weight in expectation of light winds in Qingdao, so if next week proves to be windy, there could be some interesting results.

In the juniors, the current World Junior Champion Giles Scott (GBR) looks set to be absent, while the 2007 Junior European Champion Michal Struinski (POL), 2007 silver medalist Frederico Melo (POR) and bronze medalist Piotr Kula (POL), as well of course as the 2007 World Junior Champion Jan Kurfeld (GER) will provide a high level of competition. In addition there are a lot of new names sailing the Junior championship this year, so this will be interesting to watch.

The practice race is scheduled for Monday 4th May at 14.30, with the first points race the following day at 12.00. An eight race opening series is planned with up to two races each day and a medal race for the top ten and a final race for the rest on Saturday 10th May.

Entry List:

Sail Number	Helm	Junior
AUS 2	Rob McMillan
AUS 221	Anthony Nossiter
AUS 241	Brendan Casey
AUT 3	Florian Raudaschl
BRA 10	Eduardo Couto
BUL 24	Mihail Kopanov
CAN 41	Christopher Cook
CAN 999	Matt  Johnston
CRO 11	Josip Olujic	Junior
CRO 524	Ivan Kljakovic Gašpic
CYP 19	Haris Papadopoulos
CZE 1	Michael Maier
CZE 3	Rudolf Lidarik
CZE 21	Jan Cajcik	Junior
CZE 52	Tomas Vika	Junior
CZE 81	Tomas Hrncal	Junior
DEN 2	Jonas Høgh-Christensen
DEN 231	Kenneth Bøggild
ESP 1	Diego Fructuoso
ESP 100	Rafael Trujillo
ESP 836	Alejandro Muscat
FIN 218	Tapio Nirkko
FRA 69	Jonathan Lobert
FRA 73	Guillaume Florent
FRA 972	Ismael Bruno
GBR 3	Ben Ainslie
GBR 88	Mark Andrews
GBR 111	Ed Wright
GBR 625	Ed Greig
GBR 634	Andrew Mills
GER 717	Sebastian Kaule	Junior
GER 771	Jan Kurfeld	Junior
GRE 1	Ilias Hatzipavlis
GRE 2	Eirinaios Gnafakis
GRE 3	Constantinos Gnafakis
GRE 6	Alexandros Raris	Junior
GRE 7	Aimilios Papathanasiou
GRE 8	Alexandros Dragoutsis
GRE 71	Davourlis Panagiutis
HUN 6	Gaszton Pál
HUN 8	Márton Beliczay
HUN 128	Peter Haidekker
HUN 270	Géza Huszár
IRL 5	Timothy Goodbody
ITA 2	Marco Buglielli
ITA 5	Francesco Cinque
ITA 13	Paolo Cisbani
ITA 27	Andrea Bianchi
ITA 40	Marko Kolic
ITA 68	Piero Romeo
ITA 70	Francesco Lubrano
ITA 71	Lorenzo Podestà	Junior
ITA 82	Roberto Bosetti
ITA 90	Emanuele Vaccari
ITA 97	Carlo Recchi	Junior
ITA 101	Riccardo Cordovani
ITA 103	Mauro Merlini
ITA 117	Giorgio Poggi
ITA 926	Simone Mancini
NED 41	Karel Van Hellemond
NED 45	Dennis de Ruiter
NED 787	Nanno Schuttrups
NED 839	Timo Hagoort	Junior
NED 842	Pieter-Jan Postma
NED 844	Gert van der Heijden
NOR 1	Peer  Moberg
NZL 1	Dan Slater
POL 1	Michal Strusinski
POL 2	Maciej Pezala	Junior
POL 7	Rafal Szukiel
POL 9	Tomek Kosmicki
POL 12	Waclaw Szukiel
POL 17	Piotr Kula	Junior
POR 5	Frederico Melo	Junior
RUS 9	Eduard Skornyakov
RUS 14	Dmirtry Tereshkin
RUS 17	Vasily Kravchenko
RUS 49	Egor  Larionov	Junior
RUS 91	Viacheslav Sivenkov	Junior
RUS 141	Alexey Selivanov	Junior
SLO 5	Gasper Vincec
SRB 1	Srdjan Volarevic
SRB 7	Branislav Erac
SRB 11	Milos Balunovic	Junior
SRB 71	Darko Burčul
SWE 6	Bjorn Allansson
SWE 11	Daniel Birgmark
TUR 211	Ali Kemal  Tufekci
UKR 1	Illya Efremov	Junior
UKR 5	Andriy Gusenko
UKR 7	Anton Sadchikov	Junior
UKR 21	Oleksiy Borysov
USA 4	Zach Railey