National Sailing Award for the world champions María Perelló and Marta Cardona

 

· The two-time world champions María Perelló and Marta Cardona will be distinguished next September 3 in Galicia with the National Sailing Award for the best light sailing crew

· After a successful stint in the Optimist class, these 17-year-old Majorcans from the Club Nàutic s’Arenal achieved the double (gold in the World Cup and in the European) in their first year competing together in the 420 class

· The National Sailing Awards gala will be held in Baiona under the organization of the Monte Real Yacht Club and sponsored by the Terras Gauda wineries

Perello and Cardona at the top of the podium – Photo Sailing Energy

The two-time world champions María Perelló and Marta Cardona will receive, on September 3 in Galicia, the National Sailing Award for the best light sailing crew.

At just 17 years old, the Majorcans will be distinguished for the successes obtained in 2021, their first year competing together, in which they managed to hang the World and European gold medals in the 420 class around their necks.
They were the first joint triumphs of a crew that a year later, in this 2022, continued to fight and was proclaimed champion of the Youth Sailing World Championship, the youth sailing world championship; and runner-up in the world of 420.

Perello and Cardona celebrating the success of the world championship – Photo Sailing Energy

“Receiving the National Sailing Award is the finishing touch to a great year and an honor,” says María Perelló, who sees the award as “A recognition of the effort and dedication, not only mine -he says- but also of the entire team that has helped and accompanied me during these years”.

A few years in which this young sailor managed to make history in the Optimist class, by proclaiming herself world champion for three consecutive years, setting a record not achieved by any woman so far.

And so, being a three-time world champion, Perelló decided to say goodbye to the boat with which she began to love the world of sailing and make the leap to the 420 with her friend Marta Cardona, whose Optimist was already beginning to it was small. Together they began to work on their new positions and responsibilities, and to think as a team, and the results were not long in coming.

“Sailing with María, who as well as being a companion is a friend, and achieving everything we have achieved together, is a dream from which I don’t want to wake up” acknowledges Marta Cardona. “The National Sailing Award is a new motivation to continue working towards reaching new goals”.

Perello and Cardona in regatta – Photo Sailing Energy

Perelló and Cardona will receive the award that recognizes them as the best light sailing crew on September 3 in Baiona (Galicia), within the framework of the National Sailing Awards gala, organized by the Monte Real Yacht Club with the sponsorship from Bodegas Terras Gauda.

Pichu Torcida, sailor of the year

 

· José María “Pichu” Torcida from Santander has been recognized by the Terras Gauda National Sailing Awards as the best sailor of the year for his triumphs in the Spanish and European J70 Championships

· This is the third National Sailing Award that Torcida has been awarded after being distinguished as the best skipper of the year 2010 and receiving the award for the best team of the year 2011 with the Iberdrola Team that he skippered at the time

The Noticia team led by Pichu Torcida

José María “Pichu ” Torcida from Santander will collect the Terras Gauda National Sailing Award on September 3 in Baiona, accrediting him as the best sailor of 2021, an award that the Cantabrian will receive for his victories in the Spanish and European Sailing Championships. J70.

It will be the third National Sailing Award with which this 58-year-old industrial engineer is recognized, considered one of the best Spanish sailing skippers in recent decades. After being distinguished as the best skipper of the year 2010 and receiving the award for the best team of the year 2011 with the Iberdrola Team , who skippered then; Torcida will add a new recognition to its long list of awards in a few weeks.

“Receiving such a prestigious award is a great satisfaction. That they remember you, for me, has a lot of meaning, because it is a reward for the time dedicated to this exciting sport” , says Torcida, who will receive the award “Among friends and in a place as emblematic as the Monte Real Club de Yates de Baiona, which I have a special affection for”.

And it is that Galicia has been, without a doubt, one of the places most visited by Torcida during 2021, where he trained and competed aboard the Noticia, of the Real Club Náutico de Santander, the ship of which he has been the owner and skipper since 2016, and that has given him so much joy. After winning, in May 2021, the J70 Spanish Championship, held in A Coruña; The European Championship in September, in Denmark, arrived, in which he won leading a luxury team, made up of Luis Martín Cabiedes, Rayco Tabares, Pablo Santurde and Fran Palacio.

“The one-design regattas, of anyone… J70, J80, FC8, Soto40, TP52 are the best… because not only do you have to be very prepared, -says Torcida- but also have a good team. Being at the top in such close competitions is super rewarding. I miss having done more offshore regattas, but I haven’t had time for everything”, he concludes.

Pichu Torcida has sailed and triumphed in different classes – Photo Zerogradinord

In J70, Torcida has already won several victories in different Spanish championships, a European gold and silver, and a third place in the World Championship. The world championship has eluded him so far in J70, but he has already had two in J80 (2007 and 2010), a class with which he has also scored several podium finishes in national championships and cups.

His sports curriculum, in which his participation in the 1993-1994 round-the-world trip aboard the Galicia Pescanova stands out, is as extensive as it is varied. It includes victories in the IMS 500, Sydney 40 and Class 40 world championships; a couple of First Class 8 European championships; a win at the 2015 Fasnet Rolex; or several Copas del Rey, among others.

A half century of life linked to the sea that Pichu Torcida has known how to make the most of, ever since his father, José David Torcida, bought him and his brother a little sailing boat to go from Puertochico to Puntal; going through the sailing courses in the Marítimo de Santander; and his first steps in the world of competition. A path plagued with efforts and victories that will take him to Baiona on September 3 to collect a prize for sailor of the year, which is also, without a doubt, recognition of a brilliant career.

 

 

The Soho CaixaBank Theater closes a brilliant season with the National Sailing Award for best boat

 

· The boat from Puerto Deportivo de Benalmádena has been distinguished with the National Sailing Award for the best ORC boat after achieving its sixth victory, absolute and class, in the Copa del Rey

· The project of the shipowner from Malaga Javier Banderas, brother and partner of the well-known actor Antonio Banderas, will receive the award in a year in which he celebrates 25 years of sporting career

· The Terras Gauda National Sailing Awards will be presented on September 3 at a gala to be held at eight in the afternoon at the Monte Real Yacht Club in Baiona

The Soho Caixabank Theater in the Copa del Rey

The National Sailing Awards gala will sound this year with a Malaga accent after the Soho CaixaBank Theater was awarded the prize for the best ORC boat of the season. The boat, armed and led by Javier Banderas, will receive the prestigious award after achieving its sixth victory -the second in a row- in the Copa del Rey, in which, both last year and this year, it took the absolute and class wins.

The crew of the boat, a Swan 42 CS from the Puerto Deportivo de Benalmádena, includes, in addition to Javier Banderas as owner and navigator on board with the electronics, and Daniel Cuevas at the helm; Olympic medalists Luis Doreste with tactics and Domingo Manrique with spi. Also Ángel Medina as mainsail trimmer, Piti Estébanez acting as sports director and Genoa trimer, Pipe Ruiz on mast, Fernando Valderrama as free, Rafael Díaz on piano, Ángel Medina Jr. as libero, Nicolás de Virgilis in the bow and Pablo Gauna as bow helper.

A computer teacher, a terrace waterproofer, a hotel worker, a physiotherapist, a student… different professions and different origins (the majority are from Malaga but there are also Canarians) in a team that stands out for its solidity, progression and adaptability.

“The perseverance of maintaining a sports project for 25 years is not something very common today and that continuity is perhaps the most outstanding thing about this crew, which has known and been able to stay together going through many different classes and boats”, assures the sports director of the Soho CaixaBank Theater, Piti Estébanez.

The crew of the Soho Caixabank Theater receiving their Copa del Rey award – Photo Laura G Guerra

Their sixth victory, this year, in the Copa del Rey, in which a hundred boats from twenty countries competed, allowed them to climb once again to a podium that, since 2009, they have already stepped on 13 times; and get closer, more and more, to the legend. On September 3, in Baiona, they will receive the award for the best ORC boat of the year.

The Soho Caixabank Theater in competition

Xammar and Rodríguez, best Olympic team

 

The Terras Gauda National Sailing Awards recognize Jordi Xammar and Nico Rodríguez as the best Olympic team for the second consecutive year

· The bronze that the team made up of the Catalan and the Galician achieved at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has made them worthy of this new award

The athletes will go to Baiona on September 4 to collect the award and be honored at the gala organized by the Monte Real Yacht Club

The Galician and the Catalan giving it their all in Japanese waters – Photo © Sailingshots by María Muiña

Their youth, their effort and their enthusiasm predicted that the Terras Gauda National Sailing Award they received last year would not be the only one of their sports career, but possibly they themselves could not have imagined being able to repeat it so soon.

The Catalan Jordi Xammar (Barcelona, 1993) and the Galician Nico Rodríguez (Vigo, 1991) will receive a new National Sailing Award for the best Olympic team on September 4 at the Monte Real Club de Yates (Galicia).

The bronze medal that the men’s 470m crew achieved at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has made them worthy of the prestigious distinction for the second consecutive year, and both will be in Baiona to collect the award and receive tribute from the public.

Because the truth is that these young sailors do nothing but collect applause and admiration throughout the country, not only for their continuous chain of successes but also for their indisputable charisma.

Joy and tears after achieving bronze in Tokyo 2020 – Photo © Sailingshots by María Muiña

In the last 5 years of preparation for the Olympics, they have been the most regular of the Spanish squad, managing to get on the podium of all the world and European championships played since 2017. They got the bronze in the 2017 European Championship and in the 2018 World Cup; silver at the 2019 European and World Championships, and bronze and silver at the 2021 World and European Championships.

Trained by Gideon Kliger and Juan María de la Fuente, they arrived in Japan at the top of the world ranking and turned Enoshima into their litmus test. The Japanese bronze medal was the perfect culmination of all the years of effort of a duo that destiny brought together in 2016, years after having met for the first time when both were sailing in Optimist.

Since their farewell to Tokyo through the front door and their entry into Spanish Olympic history, they have been deserving of multiple recognitions and expressions of admiration wherever they have passed.

In Baiona they will surely repeat applause and ovations. They received them a year ago when they collected their first Terras Gauda National Sailing Award and they will receive them, without a doubt, on September 4, at a gala to which both have already confirmed their attendance.

 

 

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