Athlete Olympic Class ILCA 7
Cesare Barabino
Cesare Barabino, born in 2002 in Olbia, Sardinia, is a leading Italian athlete in the ILCA 7 Olympic class, previously known as the Laser, the largest class in the world.
Having taken to the Optimist at just 7 years of age, Cesare came to prominence winning the Coppa Primavela in 2011 and the Coppa Cadetti the following year. From 2013 to 2015, the year in which he claimed the third step on the podium in the European Championship, he was part of the National Competitive Group in the Optimist before moving on to the Laser 4.7 class in 2016, where he concluded his first season in 4th place overall and first in the Under-16 category in the European Ranking. In 2017 he came top among the Under-16s at the Europeans and the World Championships, where he took third place overall. In 2018 he became European champion and won the prestigious Kieler Woche in the Laser 4.7. He then moved to the Laser Radial in 2018, finishing the World Championships in 6th place overall and as the top Under-17 athlete. In 2020 he started racing on the ILCA 7, where he ranked first in the Under-21 category at the Italian Olympic Classes Championship, a result he repeated in 2021.
In the 2022 season he will be campaigning for qualification for the 2024 Olympic Games. The rules of Olympic sailing set out that each nation can bring only one athlete for each sailing class for which the nation has qualified through the events validated by World Sailing. The YCCS supports Cesare Barabino as an up-and-coming Sardinian athlete on his path to the Olympics.