Olympic Report & Analysis 2-8-24 - 5 Min Warning #12

PlanetSail's Matt Sheahan finds Sailjuice's Andy Rice in Marseille where he's been reporting for World Sailing on the first week of the Olympic Regatta. There are four hot medal races to be decided, and Andy speculates on who might come out on top in the Men's Skiff. Going into the Medal Race any of the top seven teams could still win gold, led by Spain's Diego Botin and Florian Trittel, recent winners of Season 4 of SailGP in San Francisco. In the women there are five teams who could yet take gold, but the locals are cheering for the two mums in the yellow bibs, France's Sarah Steyaert and Charline Picon. This is their last ever competition as professional sailors before Sarah returns to her job as a primary school teacher and Charline goes round-the-world cruising with her family on a catamaran. In the windsurfing, Australia's Grae Morris and Britain's Emma Wilson have already secured a medal of some colour by winning the qualifying series and getting a place directly in the winner-takes-all, three-rider Final. The rest of the top 10 have to scrap their way through the knock-out races. Meanwhile the ILCAs (Laser dinghies) have just started racing with the 470s, Nacra 17s and Kiteboards yet to kick off their regattas. For links to more stories and content from PlanetSail and Sailjuice... Olympic stories from Marseille such as this one... https://paris2024.sailing.org/2024/08/01/day-6-analysis-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ilca/ and this... https://www.sailingtoday.co.uk/news/olympic-sailing-news-2024-skiff-racing/ Current leaders of the 49er fleet going into the Medal Race, the Spanish team, are being coached by Hamish Willcox, who has previously coached Burling and Tuke to two of their 49er Olympic medals. In conjunction with Andy Rice, Hamish has created 'Road To Gold', a 12-step online programme on how to put together a world-beating sailing campaign. Find out more here... www.roadtogold.net