Roland Gaebler crowned Tornado world champion

International Tornado media

Posted: 30  Jul. 2010

New world champions Roland and Nahid Gaebler

German Olympic bronze medallist Roland Gaebler and his wife Nahid have been crowned the 2010 Tornado world champions in Travemunde, Germany today local time, but it was Greek Olympians, Iordanis Paschalides and Konstantinos Trigonis who stole the show on the final day with three from three bullets.

Despite their three wins, the Greek crew finished second overall, a mere point behind the German pair. Third place went to a second German pairing, brothers Helge and Christian Sach.

Conditions were light when competitors hit the water and remained so for the first race of the day. The Race Officer held the boats until the wind built before starting the second race. Paschalides and Trigonis were on fire, but the Gaeblers were always close behind.

In the third race, the wind swung by 40 degrees, but the Race Officer was still able to continue by changing the course. By the end of the race, the wind filled in to 25 knots and rain pelted down. There was some great high-speed downwind action on the last leg with some competitors getting their best results.

There were two mixed teams in the top 10 which is great to see and both were flying today!

Christina Loweg, one of the mixed teams from Germany said, "For me, helming the Tornado is not so hard, it's fast and it's fun". She finished seventh overall.

New world champion, Roland Gaebler shared their excitement: “First of all we were very happy to see so many Tornados here. The Tornado is back on the track. We are still missing the presence of some nations, but the numbers are surely going up,” Roland said.

“We could feel a new spirit in our class, and highly motivated sailors, who want to see the Tornado back at the Olympics. How amazing is it that the youngest competitor was 15 years old and the oldest 72!

“We have been sailing together for over a year and to beat one of the best Olympic teams; Paschalides and Trigonis. It was a real challenge for us. Never mind that we had winds between 6 and 25 knots!”

Nahid said: “We have been married since 1992 - and now sailing together on the Tornado plus winning a World Title is unbelievable - we are so happy!”

This is the first time in the Tornado history that a mixed team won a world title.

Thank you to Manroland for sponsoring the event and providing the sailors with such a great event.

Final top five results after 8 races:
1 GER Gäbler, Roland/Gäbler, Nahid 3 1 2 1 1 2 2 [5], 12
2 GRE Paschalidis, Iordanis/Trigonis, Konstantin 1 [5] 1 3 5 1 1 1, 13
3 GER Sach, Helge/Sach, Christian 4 2 6 2 2 [10] 4 2, 22
4 AUS Burvill, Brett/Duffield, Ryan 2 3 5 6 4 8 [11] 8, 36
5 GER Hemmeter, Veit/Rieger, Moritz 6 4 [OCS] 7 8 4 3 7, 39

Interviews, video and pictures at: www.tornado-class.org/events/worlds.htm

National Maritime Festival 2010

Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2011
11th - 14th February 2011

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