2.4mR SER Gold Cup & Para World Championships: Kröger cannot be beaten

“It was a great event from start to finish!” said Heiko Kröger, who won the 2.4mR SER Gold Cup in Warnemünde by seven points and the integrated Para World Championships by 37 points. “The weather cooperated and the race committee around Stephan Giesen and Peter Ramcke managed it extremely well,” said Kröger, who can look back on a successful season: first Kiel Week victory number 12, then German championship title number 16 and now para. World title number 11. Kröger is simply hard to beat in the 2.4. The start of the World Cup was a bit bumpy. After a mixed first day of sailing with fourth and 13th places, he showed consistently good performances as usual with one third, four second and four first places. “On the first day we had a strong current, which gave me a bit of trouble at the start,” said Kröger.

Vice world champion was Antonio Squizzato from Italy, who, among other things, took part in three Paralympic Games. The 2020 vice world champion, 22-year-old Swede Fia Fjelddahl, came third.

In the open classification of the Gold Cup, Megan Pascoe came in second place. The Brit sails with a modified 2.4, which has a deeper and heavier keel. For this reason, she did not compete in the Para classification, as the sailing there is based on OneDesign measurements. The Swede Hans Asklund came in third place.

A total of 32 sailors from nine nations started in the Gold Cup, 16 of whom competed in the Para classification for sailors with disabilities. To the delight of the participants and organizers, the weather cooperated from start to finish: there were constant winds between 3 and 4 Beaufort and there was always sunshine. Peter Ramcke from the race director duo Giesen/Ramcke, who also oversees the sailing direction as sports director Warnemünder Woche was extremely satisfied with the event: “We had eleven races under ideal conditions. Warnemünde has once again presented itself as one of the best areas in the world.”

He was just a little disappointed by the reporting numbers: “It was certainly not just due to Corona. There are different views within the class as to what the framework conditions of inclusion in sailing mean.” It’s a question of principle. While the majority of 2.4mR sailors favor the model that was now used in Warnemünde, i.e. a para championship classification within an inclusive regatta, some sailors are calling for the focus to be placed entirely on inclusive events and no longer to have separate classifications for disabled people have.

Mona Küppers, President of the German Sailing Association, who took over the patronage of the event, was present at the sailing evening and also conducted the award ceremony. In her speech, she regretted that sailing was not currently included in the Paralympic Games, but asserted her commitment to getting sailing back into the Paralympic Games program. For world champion Heiko Kröger, the event was once again good advertising for the 2.4mR class: “We were able to show the entire range of the 2.4mR here. That was cool!"