Five Ring Circus
by Mark Jardine 6 Aug 19:00 NZST
The Olympic rings at the Paris 2024 Sailing Venue © World Sailing / Sander van der Borch
I've got mixed feelings about the Paris 2024 Olympics. The sailing event so far has definitely had its ups and downs, highs and lows, stand-out performances, shocks, disappointments and controversies.
The visual aspect of the Games is fantastic, and the sailing videography has been superb. Watching the top sailing athletes ply their trade and manoeuvre their boats leaves me in awe of their skills, and reminds me to move the boat around a lot more when I'm sailing in waves. The best of the best are inspirational.
The racing area has been challenging. The wind hasn't played ball most of the time, and the racing schedule has been severely disrupted. In sailing we are inherently reliant on the wind, so it's always annoying when it doesn't turn up for the big events. For whatever reason, that seems to have been happening a lot lately. Let's hope it isn't a trend that continues...
One of the events with new equipment and format is the Men's and Women's Windsurfing.
The new equipment is the iQFoil, which took over from the RS:X. I'm a big fan of the iQFoil. It's fast, manoeuvrable, and great to watch. I wasn't a fan of the 'air rowing' in the RS:X, where the fleet were pumping their sails like they wanted to break them, and so seeing windsurfers foiling around with their graceful, gliding gybes is a welcome change.
The new scoring system is another matter and turned the top three in the Women's Windsurfing on its head in just 7 minutes and 38 seconds. Great Britain's Emma Wilson utterly dominated the Open Series, finishing on 18 points with Israel's Sharon Kantor second on 49 points and Italy's Marta Maggetti third on 70 points.
Then came the new Quarter Final, Semi Final and Final. The Quarter Final saw those who finished the Open Series between tenth and fourth battle it out for two places in the Semi Final, then those who finished third and second in the Open Series took on those two sailors for two slots in the Final against the winner of the Open Series.
There are two major problems with this format. All three of these Final races took place on the same course, giving those who competed in the Quarters and Semis valuable knowledge of the area, such as the wind shifts and bends. It was putting the Open Series winner at a disadvantage, which cannot be fair. Secondly, sailing has always been a sport that rewards consistency. The reason for this is because luck can play a part, but over a longer series this generally evens itself out.
I'm gutted for Emma Wilson. Yes, I'm British, so accuse me of being a Winjin' Pom, but she deserved that gold, and I fully understand her immediate reaction of saying she was done with the sport.
The sad reality is that the Olympics is chasing viewers and needs the dramatic moments. X Games, Esports, the continuing growth of football (or soccer as you may know it), and other events are stealing a march on the 'traditional' Olympics, so the orders from the IOC are to make things more exciting. World Sailing needed to respond to keep sailing in the Games, but this format is not the answer.
I'm not taking away from the achievements of Marta Maggetti or Sharon Kantor - they're both World Champions in the class and exceptional athletes - but I believe this was Emma Wilson's time, and bronze doesn't reflect the quality of her performance.
Back on to more positive points...
The crew kinetics on the Nacra 17 Mixed Multihull are simply astounding. Watching the sailors running up and down the hulls on the trapeze to control the foil angle, especially on the downwind legs, is incredible. The crews in this class have an exceptional amount of work to do, and their fitness must be incredible.
The Italian team of Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti look almost untouchable, winning six of the opening seven races, and well ahead in the overall standings. Other teams have learned from their techniques, but they seem to have pushed things on to another level.
In the ILCA 6 Women's Dinghy, Marit Bouwmeester has become the most successful female Olympic sailor of all time, winning the Paris 2024 competition ahead of the Medal Race. She won silver at London 2012, gold at Rio 2016, bronze at Tokyo 2020, and now gold at Paris 2024. That's quite some record, and all at Sail-World.com and YachtsandYachting.com pass on congratulations.
In the ILCA 7 Men's Dinghy, Australia's Matt Wearn is showing his class. Consistency is near impossible to come by, but he's pulled out a 14-point lead after eight races and is looking good to collect another gold medal to add to the one he picked up at Tokyo 2020. He's an extraordinary sailor in an exceptional fleet.
Watching the windward mark roundings in this fleet is plain scary. Some of the positioning and manoeuvring to find gaps is phenomenal, where helms have to absolutely nail a tack to squeeze into a slot and avoid a penalty. Of course it doesn't all go exactly to plan, and there is a fair bit of bumper cars, but it's great to watch.
I was racing my ILCA in the Keyhaven Regatta on Monday, where we had two great races in a lovely breeze, and a superb turnout. At the end of the first race I finished second, just nine seconds behind good friend and rival Ian Sanderson, and we joked that you could have fitted the entire Men's Dinghy fleet at Paris 2024 in the gap!
The Skiffs were the first to finish, holding their Medal Races on Friday.
In the Men's Skiff, the Spanish pair of Diego Botin le Chever and Florian Trittel Paul, fresh from their SailGP Season 4 win, were already ahead, but sailed a flawless Medal Race to seal their victory and are surely contenders for World Sailor of the Year.
In the Women's Skiff, The Netherlands' Odile van Aanholt and Annette Duetz nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, with a mix-up of where the finish line was, but they spotted their error just in time to secure gold.
I'm yet to form an opinion on the Men's and Women's Kite events. I haven't seen any of the racing live, and am looking forward to when I do. They are seriously fast, at up to 40 knots, and how you cross tacks with other sailors boggles my mind. Some traditionalists will say that it's just not sailing, but in my opinion anything powered by the wind is.
We'll see how the Medal Series plays out in this class. It involves the top ten and seems complex, but I think it's far fairer than the Windsurfing format. Here's the explanation...
Those ranked third to tenth compete in the Semi-Finals, going into two groups of four. Those seeded third and fourth after the Opening Series begin the Semi-Finals with two wins, while the fifth and sixth seeds carry over one victory.
The first athlete in each Semi-Final to get three wins qualifies for the Finals. In the four-athlete Final, the top overall seed from the Opening Series begins with two wins, the second seed with one and the two winners of the Semi-Finals start from scratch. Once again, the first to three wins gets the gold and the remaining medals are awarded based on number of race wins and seeding.
Got it, or has this left you scratching your head like me?
At the end of the day, I firmly believe that the Five Ring Circus which is the Olympics needs Sailing and Sailing needs the Olympics. Let's hope the powers that be can iron out the wrinkles in the format for the next cycle, and that the breeze comes in for the remaining racing.
Mark Jardine
Sail-World.com and YachtsandYachting.com Managing Editor