Sailing-France's Clarisse Cremer back at helm for round world Vendee
19/04/2023 16:06
By Alexander Smith
LONDON, April 19 (Reuters) - French sailor Clarisse
Cremer, who lost her sponsorship only months after the birth of
her daughter, is back on course for the 2024 Vendee Globe, with
Britain's Alex Thomson and a new partner on board.
"I was not too sure it was going to happen this way a few
months ago," Cremer told Reuters during an interview with
Thomson, adding that in a matter of weeks she had a boat, a team
and French cosmetics group L'OCCITANE en Provence as sponsor.
Cremer, who in 2021 set the record for a solo, non-stop,
monohull circumnavigation by a woman, was dropped in January by
Banque Populaire which feared that new qualifying rules meant
she would not be able to start the race.
"It's a huge challenge to come back from a pregnancy, so I
have lots to do," Cremer, 33, said of the run-up to her first
planned offshore race, the Fastnet in late July.
The 24,000 mile Vendee, known as the Everest of sailing, is
one of the few top sporting events where women compete with men.
Thomson, 49, whose best result in the French-dominated race
was second, said L'OCCITANE had proved a "saviour" and would
help to make sailing more equitable.
Cremer said she was looking forward to sailing with Thomson
for the first time on her newly-acquired boat, which finished
second in the Vendee in 2021 and which Thomson said had cost "a
little under" 5 million euros ($5.5 million).
"Clarisse deserves exactly what she had before, if not
more... That's the bit that we are so excited about ... for her
to go out and prove that she can do this job, she can be a mum
and she can be an athlete and she can be brilliant at both,"
Thomson said.
($1 = 0.9132 euros)
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(Reporting by Alexander Smith; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
((alex.smith@thomsonreuters.com; +44 20 7542 8983; Reuters
Messaging: alex.smith.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))