Olympic qualification and young talents

  27.12.2019 Sports & Leisure

Mateo Sanz Lanz qualified
GYC Racing Team member, windsurfer Mateo Sanz Lanz, has qualified Switzerland in the RS:X windsurfing class for the 2020 Tokyo sailing competitions. He will compete in the Olympic Games for the second time since Rio de Janeiro.

Mateo is also the first sailor to have achieved all the qualifications for Switzerland. At the World Championships on Lake Garda, he finished fourth in the ranking of the unqualified nations, thus securing one of the still vacant starting places.

The conditions at the World Championships were not ideal. The strong winds were a challenge for the 26-year-old light and mid-winds specialist. However, he achieved the goal of the season. Sanz Lanz expressed relief about his performance: “I knew that it would be difficult to deliver the necessary result on Lake Garda because the wind conditions were almost always such that sliding wind conditions prevailed and so the large and heavier athletes had ideal conditions. Luckily, we also had a light wind regatta, where I had ideal conditions for myself and was able to make everything clear with a 4th day”.

For Sanz Lanz and his coach, the 4 weeks of training on Lake Garda paid off. At the Olympic venue in Japan, Sanz Lanz expects mainly light to medium winds so he can confidently start his preparations.

The long road to the 2024 Olympics
Joshua Richner and his sailing partner Max Haenssler set themselves a high goal in the 49er class. They are training to compete in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris (sailing competitions in Marseille) for Switzerland.

Richner grew up in the Saanenland and is still here regularly. It quickly became clear that he had found his sailing home in the GYC and became a member of the GYC team with Haenssler. They finished an excellent 13th place out of 54 teams at the Junior World Championships in Norway last summer.

The regatta consisted of a total of 14 races, of which the duo even won a final race, beating the flyers from New Zealand who eventually won the championship title.

Young talents
Anja von Allmen and Emilie Tschanz are among the 37 best and most ambitious Swiss young sailors. The decision was made after the tenth edition of the Talent Scout Camps, where 37 sailors from all across Switzerland were selected for the Talent Pool 2020.

The event at the Ipsach Water Sports Centre, which has now found its permanent place in the calendar of the Swiss Sailing Team, offers the most powerful Swiss sailing talents the opportunity to recommend themselves for the Talent Pool programme every year.

An experienced coaching team tested the athletes for three days. In the end, 37 sailors were added to the pool, among them GYC Sport Member Anja von Allmen and GYC Junior Member Emilie Tschanz.

Gstaad Yacht Club


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