Olympic Sailing Round-up: Team GB Triumphs and Tears
Georgie Corlett-Pitt gives us an Olympic sailing round-up, talking us through the highs and lows of a battling performance by Team GB’s Olympic sailors.
Team GB’s Performance: Olympic Sailing Round-up
From bitter-sweet beginnings to a glorious golden finale, Team GB’s performance at the Sailing events of the Paris 2024 Olympics made for a rollercoaster of emotion. With the regatta defined by Marseille’s fickle conditions, 12 days of unpredictable, predominantly light winds fuelled by intensely hot weather made for extreme challenges for sailors and organisers alike.
Dramatic scenes unfolded from the first medal – a bronze for female windsurfer, Emma Wilson, competing in the debut iQFOil class, adding to her (RS:X) windsurfing bronze from Tokyo.
Yet, the heartbreak was plain for all to see. It so nearly could have – and should have – been gold…
After going into the finals with a 31-point lead, winning 8 of 14 races in the opening series, Wilson earned a bye to the finals and with it, the guarantee of a medal. The question of which colour came down to an agonising winner-takes-all final race, in which Wilson dominated the first lap, only for her Italian rival, Marta Maggetti – 2022 world champion and fourth at Tokyo, who’d failed to win a single race in the opening series – to take a gamble on the second upwind, that turned fortune on its head. Tacking off early, the Italian sailed the shorter distance and emerged in first, with reigning world champion Sharon Kantor of Israel now in silver. Wilson tried to claw back from back from third, but the race simply wasn’t long enough. Both her rivals had competed in the semi-finals on that course already that day, giving them vital insights into the wind patterns, with Maggetti later admitting that had made her “quite confident” in her bold tactics.
Italy celebrated. Meanwhile, Wilson sank to her board, head in hands, overcome by the emotion of gold wrenched from her grasped – an excruciating scene as her coach sought to console her. Already, questions were forming about the brutality of a high-jeoprady format intended to lure in TV audiences but potentially at immense cost to individual athletes.
Speaking at the post-race press conference, Wilson slammed the format, suggesting she was “done with the sport” while questioning the impact on competitors’ mental health.
While Wilson’s disappointment was hard to push aside, it was nonetheless her second Olympic medal – an achievement to be celebrated.
It was also a welcome first sailing medal for Team GB.
They had gone into the event defending their position as top sailing nation, which they had held for five of the six previous Games. Their target for Paris had been to win between three and five medals of any colour, as set out by Mark Robinson, RYA Performance Director.
Olympic Sailing Round-up: Fickle conditions
However, achieving that target had already been proving difficult. This was turning out to be a regatta where consistency was all-but-impossible to find, thanks not only to the calibre of Olympic competition in a cycle that has brought many new faces to the fore, but the fickle breezes off Marseille which shifted and shut down without warning. Race management appeared to be trying their best, but as fans we lost count of the number of postponements, abandonments and restarts. Sailors faced long waits on the water, the sizzling heat hitting the high 30s – the mental strain impossible to fathom.
For every challenge, the British team tried hard to treat each as an opportunity, taking every race as it came. But as time wore on and schedules became ever more uncertain, playing the long game became a dangerous strategy. The pressure mounted.
49ers
In the opening races of the 49er series, British helm James Peters had spoken optimistically of “building momentum” – with hindsight, an uphill ambition. A few days later, going into the medal race in seventh tied with the Fantela brothers from Croatia, mathematically they were still in with a chance of a medal and indeed were looking good until the race was abandoned and postponed to the next day, and then again to the next…
Nerves thoroughly tested, the fleet was finally underway. A poor start for the Brits however left them seventh overall, tied on points with the Dutch. Spain’s Diego Botin and Florian Trittel celebrated gold, describing it as a “dream come true”, even if they hadn’t won a race all week, giving the Kiwis silver (in the wake of Peter Burling and Blair Tuke’s haul of two silver and a gold at the last three Games) and USA the bronze, while a medal race OCS dashed Irish hopes, Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove settling for fourth.
49erFX
Olympic Sailing Round-up: In the 49erFX, meanwhile, the British women’s pairing of Freya Black and double Olympian Saskia Tidey grappled with the emotion of missing the medal race, struggling to find their form in a high scoring week in which an OCS in race one hadn’t helped. Yet a tearful Black said she “couldn’t have been prouder” of the way they’d handled the event, as they resigned themselves to 16th overall.
The 49erFX medal race finish was wrought with tension as the Netherland’s Odile Van Aanholt and Annette Duetz thought they had crossed the line only to realise they hadn’t and had to quickly regroup to ensure the gold, ahead of a silver for Sweden and bronze for France’s ‘Team Mama’, Sarah Steyaert and Charline Picon (already a double Olympic windsurfing medallist) – the home team favourites not only received a medal but a marriage proposal each on return to shore!
Men’s iQFOil
Also with an agonising wait for the medal races to get underway were the iQFOil windsurfing classes. While Emma Wilson found herself embroiled in that tension-filled women’s finale, in the men’s class, her teammate Sam Sills had his own outside chance of a medal after qualifying for the quarter finals and putting in a solid performance to earn a ticket to the semis. But a tough last leg saw him losing ground, finishing in fifth, nonetheless a pleasing performance for this affably determined sailor.
Gold went to Israel’s Tom Reuveny, with Australia and the Netherlands sealing silver and bronze.
470 Class
In the 470 class – ‘mixed’ for the first time at this Games – Vita Heathcote and Chris Grube were dealt the cruellest hand, finishing 11th, one point off medal race qualification. It was a tough end to a tough week for 22-year-old Vita and 39-year-old double Olympian Chris, who had endured everything from the high of a second place in the first race through to the low of not realising they’d been disqualified from another race in which they’d also finished second. Austria, Japan and Sweden took the medals.
Olympic Sailing Round-up: ILCA6
ILCA6 sailor Hannah Snellgrove sailed a series in which moments of brilliance – back to back race wins – were tarnished by times where she struggled to break through, not least in the final race of the opening series, where an painful 32nd dropped her out of the medal race.
It was that medal race that saw Marit Bouwmeester (NED) beat reigning Olympic gold medallist Anne-Marie Rindom (DEN) to the gold, adding to her existing gold, silver and bronze medals and so overtaking Hannah Mills to become the most decorated female Olympic sailor of all time.
Olympic Sailing Round-up: ILCA7
In the ILCA7s, there was high expectation on Michael (Micky) Beckett, who did his best to maintain consistency in a tough 43 boat fleet, relishing the one day the wind and waves picked up in conditions he described as “biblical”.
Going into the medal race, Becket sat 15 points off silver and five off bronze. Rival Matt Wearn – who at Tokyo became the third Aussie in a row to win gold in the class – was assured the gold if he finished ahead of 2012 silver medallist, Cyprus’ Pavlos Kontides, and debates raged over tactics might be, deployed.
For Beckett, fate was briefly on his side as he gave it everything to get himself into a medal position, but a sudden shut down of the wind saw the race abandoned. Racing restarted, a penalty for illegal body movements set him back, while a further two turns on the downwind cemented his position of finishing sixth overall. Bronze instead went to Stefano Peschiera in a medal-first for Peru (a success story for World Sailing’s Emerging Nations programme) and silver to Kontides at his fifth Olympic Games.
Describing the outcome as “crushing”, it was a devastating result for Beckett, a sailor who has well proved his potential in the run up to this event and yet was denied the opportunity to see that through. No doubt the Olympic experience will have fortified his skillset and make him truly a forced to be reckoned with in future.
Nacra 17
Olympic Sailing Round-up: British optimism was reignited once again as the Nacra 17 medal race got underway. The soon-to-be husband and wife team of John Gimson and Anna Burnet, silver medallists from Tokyo lay tied with the Kiwis, Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson, in third, just six points behind Argentina in second; the Italian pair of Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti all but assured of defending their Tokyo gold. A week of largely top-five results had shown the Brits were pushing hard – too hard it turned out, when they were called OCS in the medal race. Any hopes of a medal evaporated, as they were left in fourth overall. It was deep disappointment for a promising pair that had campaigned hard. Gimson later summed up their loss as “brutal”, being “so out of our control” but said they nonetheless remained “proud”.
Olympic Sailing Round-up: Kitesurfing
Onto the debut sport of kitesurfing. And for Formula Kite’s Conor Bainbridge, there was an outside chance of a medal if he managed three straight wins from the semi-final. It was a big ask. In a tough field topped by Austrian Valentin Bontus, the determined Brit finished eighth, but has vowed to return.
Meanwhile, female kiter Ellie Aldridge went into her final day knowing she had to beat France’s Lauriane Nolot in two races if she wanted to win the gold. And that’s exactly what she did. Deliberately opting for the smaller 15sqm kite to her French rival’s 21sqm, Aldridge found the extra manoeuvrability when she needed it, and gained just enough of an edge to see off her faster rival.
It made for a euphoric ending for fans to see Aldridge jumping for joy into the water, barely able to speak with emotion as she realised she had reached her ultimate goal, winning the first ever kitesurfing Olympic gold. She described the week as a “real challenge” and said she’d needed to be “adaptable” as well as “fearless” to get this far. Aware of the testing week endured by many of her teammates, she also said that she hoped her win would “brighten everyone’s spirits” and sure enough, received a hero’s welcome back at Team GB basecamp with Union Jacks waving and champagne spraying in a heartwarming show of appreciation and camaraderie.
While it took time for the much-hyped foil-borne spectacle of kitesurfing to finally get its TV airtime, for British fans, it was worth the wait. That golden performance by GB’s Ellie Aldridge will certainly have helped win wider acceptance of this controversial discipline in the longer term. Its mindboggling format and the logistics of ‘sailing’ with strings and kites have now been unravelled and examined. Sure, it might not be sailing in its purest form, but much like the iQFOil, it’s fast, physical and requires sailors to be step ahead. Jurors watched via drones. Kites tipped 30 knots in just 5 knots of breeze. Even the post-race landings wowed the crowds on the beach – (who were pleasingly back in force after a notable absence in Tokyo due to the pandemic). On balance, kitesurfing delivered. Delays and postponements may have done worryingly little to merit our sport to TV broadcasters, but World Sailing has already confirmed that the sailing events for the LA Games in 2028 remain unchanged, with the waters off Long Beach due to host the same line-up of boats and boards. For now, at least, kitesurfing is here to stay.
The Future
There’s the Olympic Sailing round-up, and what next for Team GB? Aldridge’s glittering gold added to Wilson’s brave bronze, gave a tally far from the three golds, one silver and one bronze of Tokyo; the sailing medal table was topped this time by the Netherlands, with their two golds and two bronzes. Interestingly the home nation of France, on whom much expectation had been placed, finished with just a silver and bronze.
For GB, it was a long way to fall.
But with our medals coming in the ‘new generation’ foiling classes, that certainly is a promising basis to build on as the team re-groups, reflects and looks towards LA 2028.
And there’s one thing the British sailors can all take away from Paris 2024 – the knowledge that they gave it their very best. Of that they should be proud.
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