The breakdown of Anna Burnet’s competition schedule for 2018
World Cup Series
World Cup series, organised by World Sailing is for the 10 Olympic sailing classes. This consists of 2 World Cup competitions and then a World Cup Final. The World Cup Series is invitational and based on World Rankings. Top 40 ranked boats are invited to Series events and Top 20 to the World Cup Final.
2018 Round 1 Miami 21–28th January
2018 Round 2 Hyeres (France) 22–29th April
2018 World Cup Final — Marseille 3rd — 10th June
In 2017, Anna Burnet and sailing partner John Gimson finished 4th in Miami, 6th in Hyeres and 2nd at the World Cup Final and will be hoping to improve on that in 2018.
Eurosaf Series
The Eurosaf Series is a European circuit, similar to the World Cup but entry is open (no invite needed). In 2018 Anna and John are planning to do 3 events from the Eurosaf Series:
Princess Sofia (Palma, Majorca) 1–7th March
Delta lloyd (Medemblik, Netherlands) — 22–26th May
Kiel Week (Kiel, Germany) 20–24th June
Princess Sofia Palma is actually one of the best attended events of the year (outside of the World & European Champs) so the competition is generally very tough. There is expected to be a big entry list for Palma this year again. Last year they finished 2nd — by the looks of it it’s an awesome place to sail, sometimes with big waves and lots of wind but usually a big range of conditions over the week.
Delta Lloyd & Kiel Week are regattas that teamgbnacra (their sailing team name) will be doing purely for training purposes, so there is no focus of getting a result. The number of entries for these 2 are usually a lot lower than Palma but if more than 10 boats are entered it’s a great opportunity for them to practise certain aspects of racing.
European Championships
2018 European Championships are being held in La Rochelle, France (8–13th July). Anna and John have raced in La Rochelle a couple of times before and it is a difficult venue to perform in. The Nacra 17 class will have a combined European Champs with the 49er & 49erFX classes as all 3 Olympic classes are managed by the same class executives. Last year they also had joint European Championships in Germany.
World Championships
Their target event this year is the World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark (1–12th August). This year’s World Champs is a bigger one than most because it is a World Sailing World Championships, which means it is combined with all 10 Olympic classes (like the World Cup Series). This happens every 4 years and the last World Sailing (previously called ISAF) World Championships was in 2014 in Santander, Spain.
The World Championships is an Olympic qualifying event for all countries — the first opportunity to qualify Great Britain for the 2020 Olympics. Each country has to qualify their nation to compete and then host their own National trials to decide who actually competes at the Olympics.
So the season basically ends after the World Championships, however the 2019 World Cup Series actually kicks off in September 18! Round 1 will be in Enoshima (Tokyo 2020 venue) in September. The reason this is so early is that they wanted to start hosting a competition at the Olympic venue during the Olympic games period. Obviously this is actually 5 weeks after the Olympic Games time but due to the Aarhus Worlds they couldn’t do that.
In sailing it is very important to become familiar with the race venue, i.e learning what the wind and waves are like and improving your skills specifically for that venue. In Enoshima, the time of year is very important as the weather patterns change a lot depending on the month.
It will be exciting to see how Anna and John perform in these competitions, as they move closer to their Olympic dreams in Tokyo. One thing that is for sure is that it will be a long, hard grind filled with all types of adventures and experiences.
