Over the coming week, from Monday 17th up till Saturday 22nd, Malta will be hosting no less than 120 participants to compete in the 8th Edition of the EUROMED Malta Championship, where the Optimist Sailing Dinghy, the internationally recognised one design single handed sailing craft, will be raced. Eligible to participate in this Class, the largest junior class in the World, are ‘sailors’ under the age of 16 years.

The event will bring to our waters competitors from nine nations, namely the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, and Malta which confirms the trademark of success this exciting Championship has attained and which has given Christmas in Malta a new dimension where sailing enthusiasts are concerned.

The EUROMED Malta Championship is organised by the Malta Young Sailors Club in partnership with KMS (Kunsill Malti Ghall-Isport) under the auspices of the Malta Sailing Federation.

As in previous years besides the Optimist Class, competitive racing will also be held for the Laser 4.7, the Laser Radial as well as the Laser Standard.

In the Optimist class the fleet will be divided into the Cadet Class and the Open Class.

The Lasers Class Regatta is reserved for over-16-year-old competitors, all of whom are past Optimist sailors.

The racing programme of the Euromed is being held in Mellieha Bay over a 4km course.

The official hotel for these championships will be the Seabank Hotel, set within walking distance to the racing area whilst the Race office and the launching area will be at The Adira Sailing Centre.

Twenty-eight English plus 2 Welsh sailors make Great Britain the biggest foreign team at this year's EUROMED. Chris Witty will lead the team as senior coach whilst James Colvin will be the junior coach. Chris Witty is well know with local young sailors as two years ago he helped the Malta Young Sailors Club run the summer sailing school where he was assisted by the Club’s older boys.

The Russian contingent made up of 13 sailors will be accompanied by 3 coaches and by Vladimir Nazarov President of the Russian Optimist Class. This is the first time that a Russian team is competing in Euromed. Russian male and female National Optimist champions, 13-year-old Alexander Shelting and 14-year-old Alesandra Besmenova form part of this interesting party.

This will be the fourth visit for 14-year-old Swiss sailor Alessandre Massard. Alessandre, who started sailing at the age of six, dedicates most of his time to his sailing where he has been to all the European and World championships all over the world and always places in the top ten positions.

The majority of the Italian team, who are led by a coach from Belarus, comes from Reggio Calabria. Israel will be represented by two sailors where one of them Gal Cohen is known as an excellent sailor.

The German boy Matthias Van Holt was here last year for Euromed and even returned for a carnival training camp in February. The Irish entry Alexander Rumball, second in his country's rankings, is on his second Euromed experience, the first participation goes back 5 years.

Norway has four female sailors this year three of whom are the Agerup sisters, where two of them Maia and Ragna are 10 year old twins.

The locals will number 25 optimist sailors with Thomas Zammit Tabona, keen to retain the title he won last year and 18 laser sailors.

Other names expected to figure out this year includes Benji Borg in the Laser radial class, Sean Borg in the Optimist class along with Ella Fleri Soler in the Optimist Female Class.

The Maltese contingent is under the guidance of two coaches; Jean Paul Fleri Soler is in charge of the Optimist competitors while Mario Aquilina is catering for lasers sailors.

John Ripard is the Chairman of the Organizing Committee, whilst Peter Dimech will be the event’s Principal International Race Officer with Adrian Stogall from the United Kingdom who will be Race Officer for the Laser Class.

An International Jury will oversee this year’s Euromed. This will be composed of Jury Chairman Sally Burnett (GBR), Nino Shmueli (ISR), Bernardo Camboni (ITA), Peter Valentino (MLT), Jovin Rausi N.J (MLT), Godwin Zammit N.J. (MLT) where Anna Rossi the Club Secretary will also act as Jury Secretary

The main support for the 2007 EUROMED Malta Championship comes from Air Malta, the Malta Tourism Authority, RLR Limited, Virtu Ferries, MEDEX, Sea Bank Hotel, Good Earth, Nestles and Network Publications.