There is a hunger for regattas. It has taken 173 years to get here. The Barcelona edition will mark a before and after in the long history of the Copa del América with the celebration of the first trophy for women. There will be twelve teams in the running, the six official ones, led by the current guardian of the Hundred Guineas Jug (the Emirates Team New Zealand), and six more, including Sail Team BCN. “The level is very high, there is a very prepared and ambitious young talent, the most difficult thing, on a personal level, has been having to choose,” maintains the Olympic sailor, world champion and coach of the local team, the Sail Team BCN, Mónica Azon.
Dozens of Olympic medalists, young pushers, European and world champions or participants in the Volvo Ocean Race or the SailGP championship will compete with the AC40s (with four crew members on board) in Barcelona. The female sailing elite will measure their strength in the first Puig Women's American's Cup, between September 12 and October 13, after the Unicredit Youth (from October 10 to 26) and when the grand final of the America's Cup. In this way, it wanted to give maximum packaging and dissemination to a sporting event that is broadcast live to the entire world.
The women's regatta – along with that of the young people – has also served to accelerate the necessary rehabilitation of the Port Olímpic, where the bases of six teams will be housed. However, until the works are finished to be able to locate the sports bases there, the clubs are carrying out the selection and training process – nine teams have already confirmed their squad – in alternative spaces. Sail Team BCN has settled in Sitges, where the selection process for the women's and youth teams began in September, after the preliminary regattas in Vilanova i la Geltrú.
“In perspective we will appreciate how much all this means... for now it opens another door for women sailors and allows them to gain experience at all levels,” adds Azón. She has lived the evolution of an eminently masculine sport that took a great step when the Olympics imposed parity, but in which women continue to fight to conquer spaces. Proof of the expectation that the Puig Women's America's Cup has generated has been, and is being, the selection process. To participate in the women's and youth (mixed) teams of the British team, the Athena Pathway, led by super medalist Hannah Mills, 300 athletes applied. Between the two teams, they have six Olympic medals and 22 world championships.
The challenge is huge, especially for the Barcelona team, which will play at home. Since September, women and youth (it is yet to be decided whether this team will be mixed or not) five calls of five days each have been organized to select and prepare the group. One meeting a month, “which has not been easy because we have to combine all the competition and preparation agendas for the Paris Olympic Games (July 26 to August 11).” In addition to physical preparation, there have been three navigation sessions and two simulator sessions.
The next call will be in ten days and will coincide with the announcement of the athletes who will make up both the women's and youth teams. “On an operational level, Sitges is working very well and we will continue there until we can have the AC40,” says Mónica Azón. All the teams in Group B hope to be able to access these boats as soon as possible.
One of the sailors who has not missed the Sail Team BCN events has been Silvia Mas: “Since I was little I have followed the America's Cup, it is the most important regatta and it had always seemed like an unattainable dream to me...”, she maintains. But she did the Olympic campaign in Tokyo and was still going to Paris, but she has set this challenge for herself. And she goes for it.
