Kieler Woche: Furious fjord finale on the water - and on land

After sunshine galore at the start of Kiel Week, there was once again sunny dream weather with crisp winds at the end: Anyone who was able to enjoy the regatta sailing of the 131st Kiel Week on Sunday will remember it as a very sporting event. The fact that the sailors were also tested by strong and stormy winds and heavy rain in between during the nine-day regatta week can be understood both in a sporting and figurative sense.

Kiel Week: challenging and "cool"

In sporting terms, the lenses of the TV cameras and the eyes of the fans were initially focussed on the final two Olympic competitions on the last day of Kiel Week: The medal races for the top ten competitors in the 470 Mixed and the Nacra 17 competition at the German event of the new Sailing Grand Slam with five regatta classics in Europe and the USA were already on the programme from late morning.

In good to fresh winds of between 14 and 20 knots, the favourites and their chasers arrived at the starting line. Small whitecaps on the waves indicated that it was going to be sunny but powerful. First up were the 470 duos, in which the British World Championship bronze medallists Martin Wrigley and Bettine Harris went into the race as front runners - and defended their position with a commanding victory in the final. They won Kieler Woche gold ahead of the furiously attacking Spanish world champions Jordi Xammar and Marta Cardona, whose sailing gala was beautiful to watch.

You have to be a very good sailor to be successful here. That's what makes it so cool." Jordi Xammar

The medal races and other races were broadcast by Kiel Week TV, so that fans all over the world and the millions of spectators in Kiel's city centre were able to watch live. The organisers estimate that around 100,000 guests with an interest in sailing visited the Kiel-Schilksee Olympic Centre over nine days. Jordi Xammar complimented Kieler Woche during the regatta, saying: "We are very happy to be here. It's one of the best events in the world, a super competition, well organised."

German 470 mixed crews aim for the top

The most successful German players in the 470 mixed final were Theresa Löffler and Christopher Hoerr (Lausanne/Röthenbach), who moved up to fifth place with third place. "You want to win a medal at your home event, but it was a mixed week. We are happy to have made up places," said helmswoman Theresa Löffler.

Malte Winkel and Paula Schütze (Schweriner Yacht-Club/Norddeutscher Regatta Verein) were the second German team to qualify for the 470 mixed final with tenth place. Despite a material breakage (Cunningham soft shackle breakage) and a blocked spinnaker halyard during the race, they were also able to improve to ninth place in the Kieler Woche ranking. Which is not where the helmsman, who narrowly failed in the national battle for an Olympic ticket with his former foresailor Anastasiya Winkel in the 2024 Olympics, wants to get back to as soon as possible.

His newly formed crew wants to fight for a place in the squad next year. Malte Winkel said in Kiel: "We have the feeling that the results of our first season don't reflect what we did in the winter phase. But if we disregard the results for a moment, then I'm very happy with how far we've already come. I am convinced that we will be able to compete with the others at the top of the world again in a very short time."

Kiel Week: hot rides, more top athletes

The subsequent Nacra 17 medal race turned into a hot ride across the waves in increasing winds. Despite a nodes dive, victory went to the young Australians Brin Liddel and Rhiannan Brown from the Talent programme from coach Darren Bundock. The crew from the Wangi Sailing Club on Lake Macquarie in New South Wales thus came very close to the two top crews from France and Great Britain once again. In the final tally, the young duo from Down Under were delighted to take Kieler Woche bronze behind the French Tim Mourniac/Aloise Retournaz and the married Brits John Gimson and Anna Burnet.

The champagne sailing of the foiling catamarans concluded the competitions in eight of the ten Olympic disciplines. The Kiel team wants to work on the comeback of the kiters again next year. In the absence of top German crews such as Simon Diesch/Anna Markfort (470 Mixed) or Richard Schultheis/Fabian Rieger (49er), who both had to cancel their home races with a heavy heart due to their helmsman's clashing schedules, the German national sailors' haul totalled three medals, three fourth places and four further top ten placings.

It was noticeable that there were more top sailors at the start again in some Olympic disciplines. The German Olympic sailors had also strongly promoted this at international events in their classes. Click here for the results of all classes at Kieler Woche. The international classes enjoyed predominantly good to very good conditions in the second half of Kiel Week. The strong winds turned the fjord into a playground where athleticism and boat handling became sought-after qualities.

Heiko Kröger wins Kiel Week title 15

That was no problem for Heiko Kröger. With his series of first and second places, he had already earned his Kieler Woche title number 15 before the last day of the final. He would still be nine wins short of Wolfgang Hunger's Kieler Woche record of 24 wins on the fjord. Heiko Kröger summarised: "We had great races. The wind and courses were good, we had minimal waiting times between races. Everything went smoothly." Christoph Trömer (Plau) and Frank Huth from Norway also sailed onto the podium in the one-person keelboat 2.4mR.

In the high-class field of 50 OK dinghies, the duel between the Swedish Kiel Week title defender Niklas Edler and the three-time world champion André Budzien from Schwerin with his new boat came to a head towards the end. Before the final, Budzien had come within one point of the Scandinavian, but Edler was able to counter and came out on top.

While the OK dinghies are heading for their World Championships in September, the Contender best are already being challenged for their World Championships on Lake Garda in July. Christoph Homeier is ready. The Bremen native made that clear with his Kiel Week victory, in which he relegated multiple Danish European champion Jesper Armbrust and Australian 2022 World Champion Mark Bulka to second and third place. In the Flying Dutchman, Hungary's Szabolcs Majthenyi/András Domokos once again made what is so challenging look easy with their victory.

"Golden" offspring on the move

"It would have to be the ninth or tenth victory. We don't know exactly. But it was probably the hardest: we had really tough winds on three of the four days. Especially on the penultimate day with four races, it was very exhausting," said FD helmsman Majthenyi. Together with his coxswain, he defied an early start disqualification in the first race and finished in first place with six race wins. The Hungarians thus relegated Kilian König and Kai Schäfers (Hanover/Edersee), who sailed to their first World Championship victory this year, to second place.

In the J/70, the Danish professional Sten Mohr and his crew sailed to a commanding victory. Kai-Uwe Hollweg (Bremen) and Michael Grau (Hamburg) each had to take a moderate placing into account and were no longer able to attack Mohr. The performance of the young Maltese Timmy Vassallo in the Ilca4 was impressive. The man from the Mediterranean archipelago took eight wins in ten races.

The DSV youngsters provided some golden moments on the Kieler Woche final day. Levian Büscher (Düsseldorfer Yacht-Club), U17 bronze medallist at the ILCA 6 World Championship, beat 119 competitors to win the open ILCA 6 series. The sixteen-year-old will move to the sports boarding school in Kiel in the summer and is one of the German Sailing Team's young talents.

Kiel Week: lots of light and some shade

Moritz Borowiak and Noel Jonas Theiner (Schweriner Segler-Verein), two sailors from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern who had already won the YES, won the 420. The duos from Schwerin left 39 other duos behind them and celebrated Kieler Woche gold in the Olympic junior class. Jacob Cross and Finn Weigt from the Rheingau Sailing Club came second.

From the teenagers to the Olympic stars, from the international boat classes to the board sportsmen and women in the new "KiWo" dependence stone to the sea sailors: the majority of sailors enjoyed this 131st Kiel Week. It is now well known that in some classes there were not only weather-related cancellations, starting boats that could not be moored, communication problems, late results and also direct and open disputes about this. Neither the organisers nor their critics, who were also to be found in sailing circles, had completely ticked off the issues by Sunday evening.

In his Kieler Woche summary, Head of Sport Dirk Ramhorst once again addressed the criticism of some areas of the sports organisation voiced by athletes such as 2020 Ilca 7 World Champion Philipp Buhl (Sonthofen) and other sailors, saying on Kieler Woche TV: "We have listened. We have to do even better. But we do our very best every year to show that we can do it: We can do the Olympics. We are ready for the Olympics."

Critic Buhl: In favour of the Olympics and Kiel, but also for improvements

The former spokesperson for the athletes, Buhl, had described Kiel Week as "not ready for the Olympics" in some sporting areas and pointed out "recognisable structural deficits" in a statement distributed via social networks on the final day. His criticism concerned race cancellations as a result of problems with the anchoring of starting boats, as well as communication with the athletes and other points. However, Buhl also wrote that he supported the Olympic Games in Germany, "gladly with Kiel as the venue". He noted: "Optimising the sporting part of Kiel Week could significantly increase the chances of winning the bid."

Be brave and tell us what you think." Dirk Ramhorst

At the Kieler Woche headquarters, intensive efforts were made in the evening to smooth out the waves that had risen in the dispute. In a recently recorded clipwhich was distributed via the "Kieler Woche Sailing" channels in the social networks, Dirk Ramhorst called on the participants to share their impressions of Kiel Week.

In the clip, Dirk Ramhorst thanks the Kieler Woche activists and says: "Your feedback and criticism is of the utmost importance to us. For this reason, we will be sending you a survey in the next few days. We really want to know what the situation is like, what we can improve, what we can preserve. Perhaps you will also share your ideas with us that we may not yet have in mind," said the Head of Sport. The response could be as wide-ranging as the Kiel Week programme itself.

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