THEATER ON THE SEA
With so much uncertainty leading into the Olympic regatta, there was plenty of drama to unfold on the racecourses of Enoshima.
Let me repeat that: They had to beat nine other supremely talented skiff teams and the reigning Olympic champions—the two guys in the yellow jerseys who always sail faster when they’re under the gun.
Enoshima’s capricious winds have been challenging and random throughout the Olympic regatta, and this day is no different, with windshifts, current and marginal trapezing conditions adding to the pressure of the final four-leg, 20-minute contest for gold and glory.
Setting up an immediate split off the starting line, the British pair start at the pin and sail out to the left side of the racecourse, while the New Zealanders clear out a compromised start and head hard right. But wait—in the medal mix are also Germany’s Erik Heil and Thomas Ploessel, who are mathematically in line to win the gold, and perfectly capable of doing so.
The British duo lead around the first mark, with the Germans and New Zealanders hot on their transom, respectively, pursuing the Brits down the run and through the first leeward gate. Heil and Ploessel take command of the race on the second upwind leg, leading comfortably at the second weather mark and padding a 65-meter lead halfway down the final run.
But curiously, they jibe, sailing a long distance away from both the Brits and New Zealanders, who are waiting to pounce on the slightest mistake of either front-runner.
Our stage is now set for an Olympic highlight-reel moment.
According to the GPS tracking system, the Brits and Germans trade the lead multiple times on account of small puffs and surfs as each team finesses their boat downwind and through the slop. If Heil and Ploessel finish second, they keep bronze. If they win the race, the gold goes to Burling and Tuke. Fletcher-Scott, however, would have none of that.
As the two skiffs converge—the Brits on port jibe and the Germans on starboard— the medal will come down to one final and perfectly timed jibe across the short finish line. They’re overlapped with two lengths to go and, not a moment too soon, his heartrate racing, Fletcher-Scott turns down, angles his bow across the line, and wins the race by the length of their boat’s bowsprit. They defeat the reigning 49er champions in a remarkable display of composure and excellence that defines Olympic sailing.
Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze, of Brazil, put on a similar command medal-race performance earlier in the day in the 49erFX women’s skiff. They had started their long series in 15th place, but their scores improved throughout the regatta to the point of being tied with Annemiek Bekkering and Annette Duetz, of the Netherlands, entering the medal race.
In a brilliant display of situational awareness, Grael makes a move in the final 10 seconds of the start to reposition into a late opening at the committee boat, which allows them to start clean, at the gun, and control their own destiny. They immediately tack out into clear air. Bekkering and Duetz, in the yellow jerseys, are at the opposite end, and like the men’s skiff race later, the two rivals for the gold have divergent plans.
At the top of the beat, the Brazilians have the Dutch women in their hip pocket and keep them there down the run, getting through the leeward gate just ahead of a traffic jam that buries the Dutch team in bad air and leaves them battling to get back into the medal hunt. Knowing their fate is sealed, the Brazilians calmly and confidently sail the next two legs to secure their second consecutive gold.
Because of the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Games, every sailor has lacked the usual training and pre-Olympic regime to prepare for the Games. On the ground and on the water in Japan, the experience for the athletes is abnormal as well. The 350 sailors live in a bubble for nearly one month, each dutifully wearing a mask around the boat park. Throughout the 11-day regatta, winds range from zero to 20 knots, waves rolling in from the Pacific Ocean on Sagami Bay are big, and confused currents sweep across the racecourses, adding to the complexity of the sailing conditions.
The waves seem to reverberate off the high sea walls that were built to protect Enoshima from tsunamis, and in a surprising
They don’t know it at the time, but Great Britain’s 49er all- stars, Dylan Fletcher- Scott and Stuart Bithell, cast themselves into the lead role soft he most captivating race of the Tokyo Olympic regatta. Before the start of the men’s skiff medal race in Enoshima, the British sailors had to not only win the race, but also find a way to put one boat between themselves and New Zealand’s superstar pair of Peter Burling and Blair Tuke.
number of races, one boat heads toward the far left side of the course while another boat heads for the far right side. The edges of the racecourse seem to pay off more times than not. The key to being consistent is keeping lanes clear and finding stronger winds on the racecourse, which is challenging because there are frequent light patches, creating passing opportunities in almost every race.
Matt Wearn, of Australia, dominated the Laser class with a 23-point margin over Tonci Stipanovic, of Croatia, while Herman Tomasgaard from Norway earned bronze. In the women’s Radial, however, it’s far from easy for Anne-Marie Rindom, of Denmark, who was well on her way to securing the gold medal when she had a horrible sequence of events in Race 9 of the qualifying races.
Rindom was penalized for rocking at the start, which requires a penalty turn after the start. The race committee signaled a general recall, clearing Rindom’s penalty, but in the confusion, Rindom was uncertain whether she was eligible to start the second race. She sailed a long distance to leeward of the starting line to ask her coach what she should do, but he was unable to speak with her during a starting sequence.
Rindom sailed back to the starting line and took off with the fleet, then inexplicably dropped out of the race. She later explained she wasn’t sure whether she was eligible and did not want to be saddled with a disqualification on her scorecard. Up until this, she had a commanding lead on points, but the DNF was now her discard. Plus, she had to keep the 26th-place finish she scored in Race 9, reducing her lead to 7 points going into the medal race.
Seventh in the medal race, however, is good enough to secure the gold, with Sweden’s Josefin Olsson earning silver and the Netherland’s Marit Bouwmeester the bronze.
Australia’s Matt Belcher and Will Ryan easily win the Men’s 470 class, earning Belcher his second gold to go alongside his silver. Anton Dahlberg and Fredrik Bergstrom, of Sweden, finish with the silver, while Jordi Xammer and Nicolas Roderiguez Garcia-Paz are bronze.
In the Women’s 470, Britain’s Hannah Mills and Eilidh McIntyre also win by a large margin, but not without a moment of drama. France’s skipper, Camille Lecointre, protests the British in the medal race when it appears that Mills slows down to allow Poland’s Agnieszka Skrzypulec and Jolanta Ogar to pass them at the leeward turning gate. The international jury disallows the protest, and Poland nets silver and bronze goes to France.
The Finn has been an Olympic class since 1952 and has been raced in 18 consecutive Olympic regattas, but Tokyo ends that run with the International Olympic Committee approving the addition of kiteboards for Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028. As if to prove a point that their beloved Finn rightfully belongs in the Games here too, the big boys of Olympic sailing delivered a mind-blowing final-act medal race, with Giles Scott, of Great Britain, commanding center stage.
In the final minutes of the Finn medal race, Scott appears to be locked out of the gold as he approaches the last gate before a short reach leg to the finish. Zsombor Berecz, of Hungary, is in the lead while Scott is well back in seventh. There is a fierce battle at the mark for inside position, and somehow— perhaps miraculously—Scott navigates through the melee unscathed, and glides over the top of several boats and past the race committee’s boat transom in fourth place to secure his second gold medal.
How to Get the United States Back on Top
The United States came home empty-handed, with the poorest performance by an American Olympic sailing team since 1932. The US team qualified for medal races in three classes, but in the 115 races conducted, US sailors finished in the top three in only six races, without a single victory. In Rio de Janeiro in 2016, the United States won a bronze medal in the Finn, and it did not win any medals in London in 2012. In contrast, the United States won 21 medals in 25 classes between 1984 and 1992.
All of this, of course, means the team has its work cut out. A few months before the Games, Olympian and Star World Champion Paul Cayard was recruited to lead the American effort for the next two Olympic cycles. Many countries focus resources on select classes that have medal potentials. The long-held American philosophy, however, has been to send a crew in each class. The United States has always had a full roster in every Games until Tokyo (failing to qualify in the 49er). I’m confident Cayard and his committee will be relentless in their pursuit to improve, and to that end, I offer a few suggestions:
1. Start hosting an American Olympic Trials again. This was discontinued after the 2008 Games. It was a mistake. Over the past three quadrennials, the United States has only funded two or three crews in each class. The number of Olympic aspirants dropped significantly. One of the reasons the United States was so competitive for many years was the Olympic Trials system. If you wanted to go to the Olympics, you needed to win the trials. The system selected the best boat and helped train the winning crew to be competitive. While other countries might not use this system, I strongly believe an American Olympic Trials will improve our performance. Currently, the US team selects its sailors based on results in major regattas. The priority for American sailors is to beat their country rival, which depresses America’s scores and standings.
2. American yacht clubs should host more international events,
which allows more homegrown talent to sail in these important regattas.
3. Create a think tank to address technology and speed-enhancing ideas. The British sailing team spent a considerable amount of effort in this area. The United States has the resources and should use them.
4. Intercollegiate racing used to be closely aligned with America’s Olympic sailing program. The Olympic Committee should reestablish this relationship. College sailing takes place in small boats that favor lightweight crews. There is no boat tuning or long-course management in college sailing. Many sailors from other countries compete for the Olympics before heading off to college. In the United States, college is a priority after high school. Bringing intercollegiate racing and the Olympic program closer together will be a big help.
5. Listen to the lessons of Americans who have won medals. Host a conference and ask past American Olympic medalists to explain their reasons for success.
6. Ask all Americans to support Olympic aspirants. Yes, adequate funding is important.