Esi Maman |
Sharon Kantor (Yonathan Neuvirt, Israel Sailing Association)
Success for the windsurfing teams in the season opening competition of the Windsurfing World Cup in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, when today (Friday) Sharon Kantor secured a medal and there will actually be five female representatives and two Israeli representative surfers in the medal cruise that will take place tomorrow.
Surfer Sharon Kantor finished the preliminary races of the competition in first place and won the direct ticket to the finals of the medal races. Since three surfers compete in the final, she secured herself a medal in the first competition of the season.
Kantor went into the sailing day in first place, two points ahead of Spain’s Pilar Madrid. Kantor’s sailing day was perfect, with a win in the first slalom race followed by three wins in the course races and second place in the final race. At the same time, Kantor will fight for the gold medal in the under-21 competition with her teammate Daniela Peleg.
In addition to Cantor, four more Israeli women will fight for a medal in the competition. Kati Spichkov finished the qualifiers in third place and will receive the direct ticket to the semi-finals and will try to finish it in one of the first places in order to join Kantor in the finals. Shahar Tibi also maintained fourth place overall, leading to the quarterfinals. Maya Morris, who qualified for the quarterfinals from sixth place, and Daniela Peleg, who qualified from eighth place, will also participate with her.
This is an extraordinary achievement for coach Shahar Tzuberi’s team, when half of the medal rowing competitors will compete with the Israeli flag on the sail. For comparison, no other country has more than one surfer in the medal races. The achievement testifies to the depth of the team that Zubri managed to build in his first year as a national coach.
“We have one more day before we reach the summary stage, but there is no doubt that we opened the competition season in the best possible way,” Tzuberi said. “The depth shown by the team is extraordinary at a world level, and all the members of the team are at a level that will allow them to get the ticket to Paris.”
Also in men, two Israeli surfers will compete tomorrow in the medal races. Tom Reuveni finished his day’s trips in places (23,10,1,19) and kept the third place overall and the direct ticket to the semi-finals. The Olympic surfer from the Tokyo 2020 Games, Yoav Cohen, started the day weak and did not finish the slalom race, but then improved (5,11,23) and advanced to the quarterfinals from fifth place overall.
