Mistrzostwa Świata w Żeglarstwie 2015

Mistrzostwa Świata w Żeglarstwie odbywają się w Melbourne, Australia – od 24 listopada do 3 grudnia 2015. To ostatnie regaty kwalifikacyjne do Rio 2016.

The 2015 Para World Sailing Championships is the final opportunity for sailors to seal a Paralympic Games berth and Gibes was direct when asked about her aims for the event, „I’m here to qualify for Rio 2016 and to make the Polish national sailing team. That’s the first goal and we need to achieve it.”As one of seven teams aiming to qualify for Rio 2016 in the SKUD18 the stakes are high. Just five more places are available, meaning two teams will leave Williamstown and the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria bitterly disappointed.

Compared to the sailors around them in Williamstown, Gibes and Cichocki lack experience in the pressure pot of a world championship. In fact, they have only sailed at one event together in the build up to the 2015 Worlds, finishing 11th at the Delta Lloyd Regatta in May this year, but they have a vision, drive, determination and strong coaching that pushes them forward.

That drive was evident on the first day of competition as they laid down a marker by taking the first race win. An eighth, sixth and sixth followed and they end the second day of competition fourth overall and in the driving seat for Rio 2016.

Not bad for a crew who only recently started sailing together as their coach, Grzegorz Prokopowicz, explained, „Monika has actually only been sailing for one year so she’s very much a beginner in some aspects but she has spent about 100 days on the water this year.”

But how did she get into sailing in the first place? „In Poland we have meetings and a sports congress for people who are disabled,” continued Prokopowicz.

Gibes is wheelchair bound having been born with meningomyelocele which is a type of spina bifida but that certainly hasn’t held her up sailing in the SKUD18, a boat that can be adapted to suit the needs and requirements of severely disabled sailors.

Whilst Gibes only has one year of sailing experience the same certainly cannot be said of Cichocki who clocks up 30 years of sailing know-how that includes windsurfing, multihulls and offshore racing.A former able-bodied athlete Cichocki is relatively new to Paralympic sailing with two Para World Sailing regattas under his belt but he has a firm understanding on the sport. Cichocki sailed non-stop around the world in The Race in 2000 on-board Warta Polpharma where he finished fourth with Roman Paszke as skipper.

Sailors such as Grant Dalton, Loick Peyron, Skip Novak and Steve Fossett, to name but a few, competed in The Race but many have linked Cichocki’s time in The Race to his avascular necrosis (AVN) of the femoral head that affects his legs.

Prokopowicz said,

It’s fair to say that Gibes and Cichocki do not let anything hinder their progression, personified by their performance over the first two days of the Para World Sailing Championships.They have seven more races over four more days of racing remaining to see if they are to achieve their dream of simply making the Paralympic Games. If they make Rio 2016 from 100 days of sailing, how might they fare with 283 under their belt as the day by day countdown to the Paralympic Games rolls on?