Finish sailing star Silja Lehtinen announced this week that she and fellow Bronze medal teamate Mikaela Wulff will campaing in the 49erFX for Rio. Thanks to Matti Lettisarri for breaking the story.
Silja is no strager to skiffs, having already won the 2006 29er World Chamionships with Scott Babbage prior to her 2008 Ynling and 2012 Match race Olympic campaigns. We caught up with her for an interview about her plans.
{module Silja-Lehtinen Interview on Starting 49erFX}
It is nice to hear about Silja’s experiences growing through her 2008 campaign as a teenager and now through her second campaign in a dynamic training partnership with Anna Tunnicliffe’s Maclaren team. The great competitor and sailor she’s become, she looked into herself to see the biggest differences, a true competitor.
Skiffs have played an integral role in Silja’s sailing carreer already. She jumped from optis straight into the 29er and went on to win a worlds. It was interesting to hear how the Audi 49er Grand Prix in Finland helped to launch Silja’s campagn for 2008. Since Thomas Johansson and Jyrki Jarvi won the 49er gold in 2000, the skiff scene in Finland has been a mainstay on TV. Good sponsors seem to be constantly helping produce a number of good Finish sailing teams. Now, as things come full circle and Silja gets back into a skiff we can only hope that she and her brother Lauri continue that trend for the nexst 4 years. We’ll all have to wait for a short while though as Silja will spend most of this winter continuing her studies and then get into serious sailing again in the spring. It will be interesting to see if they can be up to speed by this summers regattas with only a few months of trainig behind them.
The Finish ladies of sailing have become quite the celebrities since the games after capturing a Silver in the windsurfer and a Bronze in the match race. Mikaela seems to have found her groove going to some fancy parties, and was not one to loose site of looking after her sponsors with a well place Audi symbol on her back, nicely done!
Welcome to the fleet!
