Fraglia Vela Riva completes the program of the Garda Lake Opti Meeting with the Sprint Cup
Riva del Garda – Fraglia Vela Riva is enriching the program of its flagship regatta: the 43rd Garda Lake Opti Meeting, scheduled between 17 and 20 April 2025 and already included in the Guinness World Record on the occasion of the 35th edition for the highest number of participants ever recorded in a single-class regatta, will be preceded by a new regatta.
Scheduled between 12 and 13 April, therefore the weekend before Easter and the ‘main event’, the Sprint Cup “…will focus on a particular knockout format, innovative and engaging, immediately understandable for those who follow it” explains Ciro Giampiero Mercurio, member of the Fraglia Vela Riva board.
Once the excitement of this new event is over, the program will resume on 16 April with the highly anticipated Country Cup; Now in its eleventh edition, the regatta will involve a representative from each of the Nations represented in a series of three fleet races, short and competitive. The best in the ranking will have the honor of lifting the iconic perpetual trophy.
Following the 11th Country Cup will be the Opening Ceremony of the 43rd Garda Optimist Meeting, which will see over a thousand participants reach the town square of Riva del Garda in a group, in the wake of the City Band. The following day, April 17, will be the time for the first regattas: the format includes a series of heat races, useful for defining the Gold, Silver, Bronze, Emerald and Pearl fleets in view of the final, decisive races.
As per tradition, the 43rd Garda Optimist Meeting will also end on Easter Sunday, with the colorful awards ceremony, scheduled at the PalaVela.
The PalaVela itself will be one of the pulsating souls of the regatta, which as always will count on the presence of a Regatta Village inside which there will be stands and assistance points of the leading companies in the Optimist class.
Another event eagerly awaited by the young participants is the lottery that, scheduled for the afternoon of Friday 18 April, will see important prizes awarded, the most coveted of which are two Optimists ready ‘at the buoys’, one reserved for cadets and one for the junior fleet.
“The Garda Optimist Meeting is the Fraglia Vela Riva regatta, known throughout the world, and is the event that best represents us. With the Country Cup now well-established and considered an essential appendix of the Meeting, in view of the 2025 edition we liked the idea of completing the competitive offer by proposing the Sprint Cup: a sort of ‘surviving race’ that, we are sure, will excite the young participants, and will extend what is already a great celebration of the Optimist universe” commented Andrea Camin, president of Fraglia Vela Riva.
