Erwan Fischer and Clement Pequin brought their A+ game to the 49er Worlds and victory for the French sailors came at the perfect moment for them
ANDY RICE As a sailing journalist and TV commentator Andy has unparalleled knowledge of the performance racing scene, from grassroots to elite level
Sometimes all the stars align and a team is able to bring a really special performance together in really challenging circumstances.
Erwan Fischer and Clement Pequin brought their A+ game to the 49er World Championship in Lanzarote in early March. In more than a quarter of a century of Olympic skiff world championships, this was the first time France has ever won gold in this hotly contested fleet.
Victory couldn’t have come at a better time for the French to be getting their act together, just four months before the Paris 2024 Games and the Olympic Regatta due to be contested in Marseille.
The French trials have yet to be decided, although it’s hard to imagine the selectors looking beyond Fischer and Pequin after such a barnstorming performance. This is a bit tough on French teammates Lucas Rual and Emile Amoros who won a light-airs European Championship in Portugal back in November, but the Worlds is really the only time in the season when everyone pulls out all the stops. When it’s all about the result and nothing else.
Fischer and Pequin will surely represent France at the Games, but the favourites will still be Bart Lambriex and Floris van de Werken. The Dutch had won three consecutive world titles in Oman, Canada and The Hague and came to Lanzarote showing all the form to be able to do it a fourth time.
The Dutch sailed really well to finish second overall, but the French were superhuman on this occasion. Through all the seemingly random wind shifts and sea states, they always had an answer. It was a dominant performance from start to finish. Now it’s up to the French to show this wasn’t just a one-off, but that they’re the real deal for the Olympic Games.
Although Marina Rubicon in the south of Lanzarote has become one of the go-to winter training bases ever since the Covid years, the conditions always seem to be different. That’s partly what makes the place so interesting. There’s nearly always sailable wind, and the rolling Atlantic swell far out into the ocean, combined with a more local Canary Islands chop, can combine to create really challenging sea states.
The variable and sometimes random sea state was making it
