With a start-to-finish victory in Friday's medal race, Mária Érdi won the gold medal at the ILCA 6 (formerly Laser) European Sailing Championship in Athens. In the men's category, Jonatán Vadnai won a silver medal, and his brother Benjamin finished fifth.
With the latter result - as written on the Facebook page of the domestic association - it was decided that the younger brother will compete in the summer Olympics in the ILCA 7 boat class in Marseille.
Mária "Mári" Érdi, who won the Paris Olympic quota last year with the world championship title in sports history, was able to start the medal race from the front, practically winning from start to finish. He was the first to take all the buoys and was the first to finish with a convincing advantage. Behind the Hungarian sailor, the Lithuanian Viktorija Andrulyte was second, and the French Louise Cervera was third. It is characteristic of Érdi's balanced and great performance that, apart from his eliminated 11th place, his worst result was a sixth place, he finished second and third twice.
"It was one of the hardest races of my life. Weak wind and a lot of unpredictability, which I got from this EC, but I managed to adapt to all of them the best out of the entire field. I am unspeakably happy that last year's World Championship gold and European Championship bronze are now accompanied by a European Championship title. My coach and I put together a good tactic and it turned out to be effective. It wasn't easy, because before the medal race the field was very dense in terms of podium places"
- evaluated Mária Érdi after her success in the European Championship.
"I already knew before the European Championship that the one who makes the fewest mistakes and makes good decisions can win here. I tried to keep these two things in mind before and during every race"
- added the sailor who was chosen as the female athlete of the year 2024 at the M4 Sport and MSÚSZ gala.
The MVM sailor has won two gold medals and one bronze medal in the last four major world competitions, and at this year's World Cup he missed the podium and finished in 7th place only because the sole screw of the boat broke during the race due to a manufacturer's error.
"Of course, I'm very happy that I managed to win the European Championship title so soon after the World Cup title," he told M1. He added that "some big names were missing from the field", but this year's world champion, the Danish Anne-Marie Rindom, was there. "The goal was clearly to beat him"
he emphasized.
He explained that due to the weak wind and the resulting unpredictability, balanced racing and a stable result were very important.
"It was also yesterday that I came up to the first buoy as the thirtieth and had to come up from there. I was very happy that my speed was there and that I managed to race at my best in such unpredictable conditions.”
In the women's ILCA 6 Olympic boat class, 107 competitors started in Athens.
There was no medal competition for the men on Friday, but at the same time they were able to run three races. According to the information of the domestic association, two were originally planned, but the international association assessed that there was time for a third, so in the end, one more was held.
Jonatán Vadnai won the first, then finished 14th, then proved to be the fastest again, and was able to catch up from the previous day's fifteenth to second place. Benjamin Vadnai was sixth on Thursday, and on Friday he was 12th, ninth, and then 18th, but he was able to cancel his last result.
Jonatán Vadnai won the Olympic quota at last year's combined world championships. Benjamin started at the last two games, but the younger brother has shown better form in recent times, he was fourth at the 2022 European Championship, and at the January World Cup, he collected a 77-point advantage over his brother, and finished ahead again.
136 sailors started in the men's Olympic ILCA 7 boat classes. From the Hungarian point of view, the European Championships in Athens ended with a historic sporting success: there were Hungarian medalists in both the women's and men's categories.
Featured image: Mária Érdi competes in the ILCA 6 (formerly known as Laser) boat class at the World Sailing Championships in The Hague on August 20, 2023. Erdi won a gold medal (Photo: MTI/EPA/ANP/ Sem van der Wal)
