From September 26th – October 4th the 2020 Forward WIP 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 European Championships will be taking place on Lake Attersee, Austria. After the World Sailing Games held on Lake Neusiedl in 2006, it is the highest-ranking sailing event ever held in Austria. The Union-Yacht-Club-Attersee was awarded the contract to host this major event and has gone to great lengths in order to organize the event during these tumultuous times with sophisticated COVID-19 measures.
The three aforementioned classes are the Olympic high-speed classes; they are, so to speak, the Formula 1 of sailing sports, with boats that are so fast that powerboats sometimes have difficulty keeping up. The sailing world elite will descend upon Austria to lock horns with each other and will include many former Olympians.
ICARUS Sports, having enjoyed a long-standing partnership with the 49er class, will be teaming up with UYC Attersee and Robline to bring the action to the world. ICARUS Sports will be in Austria and will be responsible for producing daily highlights videos, interviews for TV usage, wrap up documentary, and for distributing raw footage for TV News usage. Also, highlights from the event will be included in our monthly TV shows, Inside Sailing and Sailing To Tokyo, meaning guaranteed international exposure in more than 160 countries.
Rainer Wilhelm, Global Manager Yachting Ropes at TEUFELBERGER Gruppe, commented “Robline is absolutely excited about this high-ranking Olympic class regatta in its Austrian home waters. Robline provides high tech ropes to sailors in Olympic classes all around the world. We want to show our commitment to top-level sailing. It is an honour to support this event.”
Christoph Stadler, Business Development Manager at ICARUS Sports said, “ICARUS Sports has been a long-standing partner of the 49er and Nacra 17 classes and has covered many events in these Olympic speed classes in the past. We are delighted that this cooperation continues for the European Championships on Austria´s Attersee and thank UYC Attersee and Sponsor Robline for this opportunity. We will do what we do best, capture the passion and share the experience with spectacular racing action from Upper Austria.”
Gert Schmidleitner, Member of the Organising Committee & Race Officer at UYC Attersee “The Union-Yacht-Club Attersee is honoured by the trust of the 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 class associations. To organise an event of this size within two months is a great challenge. Especially the constantly changing requirements in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic are a topic in itself. To be on the safe side, every athlete must have a negative Covid-19 test upon arrival. Of course, all volunteers and the organisation team are also tested. Crowds of people are avoided as far as possible. Results and announcements are not as usual on a physical notice board but only online. There will be no opening and no award ceremonies corresponding to the event.”
Photo Credits: Schasch Kahn
