Carlo Borlenghi
The Telefonica team will contest the 2008-09 race with four Olympic gold medallists in their ranks following a bitter-sweet Games for Spanish competitors in Qingdao.
Fernando Echavarri won the Tornado gold while Iker Martinez and Xabi Fernandez, gold medallists in the 49er class in Athens in 2004, had to settle for silver this time after an eventful medal race and a protracted protest-appeal process.
Completing the quartet is Jordi Calafat, who struck gold in Barcelona in 1992 in the 470 class.
Echavarri looks upon his achievement in Qingdao, site of a Volvo Ocean Race stopover in February next year, as a victory for everyone involved in the Telefonica campaign.
“A gold medal is the result of lot of years of hard work,” he said. “We, Anton (Paz) and me, have achieved great victories during our careers but never a gold medal.
“An Olympic medal is the culmination of a lot of effort and sacrifice by all the people you have around you – and here I include all the Telefonica Volvo Open 70 team.
“My gold medal is a shared medal. This medal belongs to all the Telefonica team. Without their help it would have very difficult to achieve my Olympic dream.
“All of them have given me the chance to combine both campaigns – Volvo and Tornado – and the victory at the Olympics has been achieved by the effort made by all of them, shore team, sailing team, management.”
Echavarri reserved special praise for Telefonica Sporting Director Bouwe Bekking who gave his full support at such a crucial phase of Volvo pre-race preparations. Bekking, he said, was one of his staunchest supporters.
“His support and the way he allowed me to be focused during the last three months on the Olympic campaign has been fundamental to my success. I have had his full support and I thank him for that.”
Looking ahead to the race – starting in Alicante in October, he added: “The Volvo is a different platform than the Olympics for sure. But at the end of the day both are based on a team effort. In the Telefonica team I am a small piece of the big puzzle.”
The near-miss of Martinez and Fernandez was one of the hot topics of the Qingdao regatta, particularly for the IOC jury members.
The Spanish pair were denied their crowning moment by a Danish crew who had borrowed a fellow-competitor's boat after their own had suffered gear failure shortly before the start of the 49er medal race.
The decider was incident-filled, with all 10 boats capsizing at some stage as high winds and big seas buffeted the fleet.
Martinez and Fernandez won the medal race with the Danes securing the seventh place they needed for the gold medal. Subsequent protests and appeals went in favour of the Danish duo of Jonas Warrer and Martin Ibsen.
"We were champions in Athens four years ago. We got silver this time, it is still good for us,” Martinez said at the post-race press conference.