Young CI sailors qualify for Youth Olympics in China

(CISA): Everyone in the Cayman Sailing Community can be proud of our young sailors who qualified Cayman for two Youth Olympic Games places over the weekend. The team of Florence Allan, Pablo Bertran, Jesse Jackson and Shane McDermott travelled to the Jensen Beach US Sailing Center Martin County, Florida to compete in the Byte CII North American Championships. This event was also the continental qualifier for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games to be held this August in Nanjing, China. 28 competitors from 14 countries were competing for four qualifying places for boys and girls.

Pablo sailed a very strong regatta taking a first and three second places in the ten race event. He finished with a convincing second place with 34 points and qualified Cayman ahead of the British Virgin Islands with 50 points, the Bahamas with 51 points and the US Virgin Islands with 54 points. Jesse was 10th with 66 points and Shane took 14th place with 92 points.

Florence Allan sailed a consistent regatta, fighting it out with arch rivals Ceci Wollmann from Bermuda and Celeste Lugtmeijer from the Dominican Republic who had qualified their countries at last year’s World Championships. Florence took the top qualifying spot ahead of Paige Clarke from USVI, Abigail Affoo from Trinidad and Paula Pelayo from Mexico.

The team has been together for over a year training hard for this event. Coach Raph Harvey has had them out on the water at every opportunity, often coming in after dark. The Cayman Islands Olympic Committee has supported their travel to three other overseas regattas. They will now be putting all their efforts into improving their competitive edge ahead of travelling to China in August.