Heiko Kröger has already earned his sixth Kiel Week title one day before the final. The 47-year-old Paralympics winner from 2000 has won ten races in twelve races in the 2.4mR class so far. The field can no longer catch up with the man from Jersbek, who last year celebrated silver at the Olympic sailing regatta off Weymouth, in the remaining two races on the final day. He could stay ashore, but he won't: "I want to go racing again tomorrow in the forecast strong winds and also fight for the Roosevelt Cup for the best Olympic team of Kiel Week."
With five podium positions and a total of eight teams, the German Olympic sailors are heading into the eight medal finals of Kiel Week on Wednesday. The most promising German starters at the end of the Olympic half of the 119th Kiel Week are the planing dinghy sailors in the 49er FX and 49er classes as well as Laser European Champion Philipp Buhl and Olympic participant Franziska Goltz, who are all in the top three after the main round.
According to the forecast by Kieler Woche weather expert Meeno Schrader, the finals will be accompanied by stormy winds of up to 30 knots on Wednesday. "We'll probably all go flying," predicted 49er FX foresailor Susann Beucke from Strande, who with her helmswoman Tina Lutz will start the final in second place behind their Berlin rivals Victoria Jurczok and Anika Lorenz and just like their male 49er team-mates Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel. European Laser champion and defending champion Philipp Buhl is in third place and will be aiming for his second Kiel Week victory.
The final Olympic programme for Wednesday: The 49er FX sailors will start their three very short "Theatre Races" on the TV course at 11 a.m., the course of which is artificially limited by a 500-metre-long floating line to create even more excitement and action in a very confined space. The 49er sailors will follow in the same mode. The 470 women and the Laser sailors will then start one after the other in their only medal race on the TV track.
The Finn sailors will open the final spectacle on lane 2 at 10 a.m., followed by the 470 men, the Laser Radial helmswomen and the Nacra 17 artists. Whether the latter will be brought forward because the winds are expected to pick up as the day progresses was discussed in the evening at a meeting of the regatta organisers.
There were no final results from the second regatta day of the Kiel Cup in the evening. The race committee had asked the big boats to take part in four challenging races, which were still going on at around 6 pm.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
