Like no one before them. Tonći Stipanović, Filip Jurišić, Pavlos Kontides. In that order, the sailors of Split’s Mornar stood on the podium at the European Championship in the ILCA 7 class (former laser) in Andorra, Italy, and dominated like no one before them.
Stipanović became the European champion for the fifth time in his career, but for the first time after 2014, and tied with the Briton Goodison as the class record holder for the number of European titles, and this is his 11th medal in his career, Jurišić took the third medal in his career. And with more than 15 years of experience in the Split club, an excellent performance was crowned by Pavlos Kontides, a Cypriot who has been a member of the club since his teenage days and took the tenth medal of his career.
No country has ever had three sailors on the podium, let alone one club. In a competition of 63 sailors, they made a superb effort with the signature of a wonderful coach Joze Jakelić and his “Joza gang”. He has 26 medals from major competitions.
– Come on, mother! That was the last regatta. On the last buoy, I overtook one ship, in the end that’s what decided, even though I didn’t know – said Stipanović and concluded:
– The three of us always joked among ourselves that all three of us had to be on the podium one day. In the end, Pavlos pulled through and moved from fifth to third place.
The runner-up Jurišić was particularly emotional.
Everything was rounded off by the sailing ‘coach of all coaches’
-. What we have done is a miracle! My emotions are still a little locked, but I am especially happy for coach Joza.
And it was the sailing “coach of all coaches” Jozo who got the last word and rounded off the story. With a cup of tea to relax, and as usual he needs time for things to settle down a bit.
– I’m completely empty. All in all, it was not easy to endure, I’d rather not talk about what the conditions were like, both at sea and from the organizers. It’s nice to write history every now and then, this is a historic day for Sailors, but also for Croatian sailing.