World Cup in Finnish category. The Poles before the last chance to qualify for the Olympic

The Finnish World Championships, which begins on Saturday in Porto, will be the last chance for European sailors to win the Olympic qualifiers. Piotr Kula (GKŻ Gdańsk) and Łukasz Lesiński (YK Stal Gdynia) will also compete for one vacancy.

19 contestants will compete in the Finnish category at the Tokyo Olympic Games. In 2018, eight countries qualified in the world championships in Aarhus, Denmark, Hungary, Sweden, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Canada, Argentina, Great Britain and Turkey, while in May 2019, after the European Open in Athens, these are the Brazilian group, Norway, the United States and Greece.

Moreover, automatic participation in each competition is guaranteed by virtue of being the host, in Enoshima Regatta in Japan and after two qualifying deals there are six places left, one for each continent.

The last chance to win this nomination for sailors from Europe, including the “white and red” sailors, will be the World Championships in Porto.

The European Championships, which ended April 16 in Vilamoura, were a general test of this regatta. The Poles performed very poorly in Portugal – in the competition which featured 49 players from 30 countries, Cola was 30 years old, and Lesinski was 38.

Hungarian Zsombor Berecz defended the title, winning a year earlier at Gdynia, and next to the winner at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, four-time world champion, three-time British European Giles Scott and Swiss Nils Thionink, for whom that was the greatest success of his career.

Representatives of, among others, countries such as Spain, Croatia, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, France, Estonia, Finland and Russia, which in Vilamoura ranked higher than Poland.

Last year, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the Finnish World Championships were not held. In December 2019, New Zealander Josh Jr.was defeated in Melbourne, the second was Nicholas Hainer, and the third was Perrickz. White and Red did not start in Australia.

The Porto competition continues until Wednesday. The plan includes 10 runs, two each day, but no double-point race with the top 10 sailors at the end. 59 competitors from 33 countries applied.