By winning three legs out of the nine raced since Saturday, Michel Desjoyeaux has won the 18th Trophée Clairefontaine des Champions de Voile organised at the sailing stadium in La Trinité-sur-Mer. This is his fourth Trophée Clairefontaine victory, following those of 2001, 2003 and 2004.

Michel Desjoyeaux and his crewmen, Xavier Revil and Christophe Espagnon, snatched this victory from the Swiss, Luc Dubois from the Alinghi Team, following a long duel. Only one point separated them at the end of the nine legs. Loïck Peyron took third place on the podium just three points from the winner.

A word from the champion of champions, Michel Desjoyeaux: “Everything went well. From Thursday, the racing was animated and we knew that this Trophée Clairefontaine was going to be a difficult one. We started the day well with two victories, which made us feel confident. Then, we got ourselves into a sticky situation. We ended the day better on the two last Runs, just enough to win them. It was a really close finish! As is often the case, the whole trophy hung on the last Run. At the finishing line, we still didn’t know whether we had actually won. So it ended well and that’s perfect!”

Overall Results (after nine legs)

1st Michel Desjoyeaux, 50 pts (7,6,3,1,1,1,7,5,6)
2nd Luc Dubois – Team Alinghi (Swiss), 49 pts (2,3,1,7,4,6,1,8,5)
3rd Loïck Peyron, 47 pts (5,2,5,3,5,3,6,1,7)
4th Franck Cammas, 45 pts (1,7,6,4,3,5,8,3,2)
5th Yann Eliès, 43 pts (8,8,8,5,2,7,2,2,1)
6th Nicolas Troussel, 42 pts (3,5,4,2,8,2,5,4,8)
7th Vincent Riou, 38 pts (6,1,7,6,7,4,3,7,4)
8th Jérémie Beyou, 37 pts (4,4,2,8,6,8,4,6,3)