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Victorian Chase Lurati has achieved one of his long held goals - a gold medal at the ISAF Youth Worlds. The Gippsland sailor has pursued his goal over many years often travelling from one side of the country to another to compete in National championships. The OAMPS Insurance Brokers Australian Youth Sailing Team multihull crew of Chase Lurati and Paul Darmanin has won Gold at the 2010 Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championship in Istanbul Turkey. In their debut at the world’s largest youth sailing event the Australian pair headed into the final day with an unbeatable nine point lead over the second placed Danish crew and kept their competitors in check throughout the final race. Lurati and Darmanin finished fourth aboard their SL16 in Friday’s race, one place ahead of Denmark’s Bjornholt brothers, giving them the Gold medal by 10 points.
“It’s an amazing feeling to win an event like this, I’ve got pins and needles all over my body,” said skipper Lurati. “It was the perfect regatta, everything went exactly to plan for us.”
“Winning the Youth Worlds is amazing, it’s now set my own personal standards higher and has given me more confidence on the water,” he said. “I now know where I am against the best youth sailors in the world.”
“We’ve got the presentation ceremony tonight and I’m looking forward to getting the medal around my neck and never letting go of it,” he said.
Darmanin was just as excited after coming off the water in Istanbul.
“It’s pretty awesome and definitely hasn’t hit me yet,” said Darmanin. “We’d already done enough to win the regatta heading into today’s final race so we just went out and tried to go fast, have fun and stay out of everyone else’s fights.”
“It was a good finish to the week, my sister and cousin won Gold for Australia at the Youth Worlds last year and they’ve been supporting us the whole way, and we’re thrilled to win the Gold medal here,” he said. “When we arrived in Turkey we didn’t know what to expect but after the first race we thought that we could win this and then went about it doing it.”
Coach Johnny Rodgers said that the hard work that Lurati and Darmanin put in on and off the water paid off when it counted.
“I’m really proud of the boys,” he said. “They sailed so well the whole way through the week and worked incredibly hard for this win. They’ve both matured a lot throughout the regatta and were great to work with as a coach.”
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