Sailing: Barcelona Olympic Week competition-Julie runner-up to winner Negri |17 March 2005

The single-handed dinghy Laser specialist’s result has come less than a month after he flew back to Europe to resume training and competition as part of his interim scholarship for the year 2005, sponsored by the Olympic Solidarity.

Twentieth out of 42 sailors in the single-handed dinghy Laser class of last year’s XXVIII Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, Julie, 27, had three first places in races two, three and six. He was second in races eight and nine, third in race seven, fourth in races one and five, while his worst finish – a ninth position – was in race four.

After discarding two of his worst results at the end of the five-day competition (March 11-15), Julie finished with a total of 14 points.

In his ninth consecutive season in Europe, Julie, who has been benefiting from Solidarity-sponsored scholarships since 1997 and is ranked 21st with 4,096 points on the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) ranking published on March 4, will next take part in the Europa Cup, starting April 7 in Monaco. Right now, Julie is training in Slovenia with SailCoach.

Had he not finished in ninth place in race number four, three-time Olympian Julie could have well been in with a good chance to challenge Negri for the winner’s trophy.

With nine points at the end of the competition, the Italian, who took 13th position overall at the XXVIII Olympiad in Athens last year, had five first places in races one, four, five, eight and nine.

Ranked 10th worldwide with 4,522 points on the ISAF ranking, Negri was second in races two and seven and third in races three and six.

Third place overall in the Barcelona Olympic Week competition went to Spanish Javier Hernández Cebrián with 20 points.

G. G.