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Displaying items by tag: Blanca Manchon

ISAF announced the male and female winners of the 2010 ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Awards are:
Blanca Manchon (ESP) and Tom Slingsby (AUS).
Blanca Manchon was nominated for the third time this year and had her family and friends with her at the Awards ceremony here in Athens. "This is really fantastic," said a radiant Manchon on stage as she accepted her trophy and her Rolex timepiece. "As this is my third nomination for the ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Award we were all hoping this would be it... and here I am! I cannot believe it. I worked very hard to get here but I'm young - only 23 years old - so I hope I continue to do many things and maybe I will see you again here someday."
Tom Slingsby could not make it to Athens for the ceremony due to electrical storms over Sydney that grounded international flights. Slingsby was surprised when his phone call to "discuss laser sailing", turned into a live announcement from HRH Prince Frederik of Denmark, announcing that he had won the 2010 ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Award. "Wow, thank you!" said Slingsby. "I just remember sitting on the rocks in Sydney harbour watching the Olympics. I remember seeing people like Ben Ainslie and Robert Scheidt, two former winners of the ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Awards, and thinking, "I want that, that's really what I want to do." To be considered among them today is really an incredibly big honour."
The ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Award is the highest award a sailor can receive in recognition of his/her outstanding achievements. The Awards are presented annually based on a worldwide selection process that incorporates an open invitation to nominations, followed by a vote amongst the 130 member nations of the International Sailing Federation (ISAF).
The Awards have been held every year since 1994 and past winners include Peter Blake (NZL), Ellen MacArthur (GBR), Robert Scheidt (BRA) and Russell Coutts (SUI). In 2009 the Awards were presented to Torben Grael (BRA) and Anna Tunnicliffe (USA).
www.sailing.org/worldsailor
Published in World Sailing

William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland and internationally for many years, with his work appearing in leading sailing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a regular sailing columnist for four decades with national newspapers in Dublin, and has had several sailing books published in Ireland, the UK, and the US. An active sailor, he has owned a number of boats ranging from a Mirror dinghy to a Contessa 35 cruiser-racer, and has been directly involved in building and campaigning two offshore racers. His cruising experience ranges from Iceland to Spain as well as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and he has raced three times in both the Fastnet and Round Ireland Races, in addition to sailing on two round Ireland records. A member for ten years of the Council of the Irish Yachting Association (now the Irish Sailing Association), he has been writing for, and at times editing, Ireland's national sailing magazine since its earliest version more than forty years ago