The Road to Rio now 99 days short

by Rob Kothe, Sail-World.com on 28 Apr 2016 The Road to Rio 2016 still has a few curves, bumps and potholes for teams battling to win in Hyeres, at some World championship events and Weymouth World Cup but for many crews: 'It's 106 miles to Chicago we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses.' Whoops wrong movie.

Here in Hyeres, the second last World Cup event in this quadrennium, the weather is up and down but the heavy wind, flat water start yesterday, provided totally different conditions to any likely to be experienced in Rio. With the Mistral wind blowing at 25-30 knots at Practice Race time, the various course race officers had been absolutely short of clients on Tuesday. On Day one winds of 25-30 knots were experienced by much of the fleet.

In the Nacra 17 fleet, just one race was sailed, with 13 finished and 19 DNF’s. The boat park looked like a war zone.
Today the winds stopped, with postponements ashore and some gentle zephyrs by mid-afternoon. But the Mistral is due back later in the week and on Sunday could hit 35-40 knots in the late afternoon, so we won't be surprised to see races starting early during the second part of the week.

We arrived here well ahead of the regatta, to conduct in depth interviews with many of the Rio contenders and will releasing those over the coming weeks.

Across the classes, there is general agreement from the sailors that the Rio venue is one of the most challenging on the world stage, with tidal water flow differences of up to four knots on the Guanabara Bay courses and the offshore courses will often throw up two metre swells with wind variances of ten knots between top and bottom of the waves.
Some of the sailors have made over a dozen trips to Rio and no one has seen any improvement in the lamentably polluted waters. One sailor sadly commented today, there is one small benefit of the bay debris, 'it makes the reading of tidelines made easier.’

In some classes, clear Rio Gold Medal favourites have emerged Burling and Tuke in the 49er Men's, Belchers and Ryan in 470Men's, Besson and Riou in the Nacra 17's, Giles Scott (GBR) in Finns are close to odds on but the competition is much more even in the 470 Women's, 49er FX, Lasers, Laser Radials, RS:X Women's and RS:X Men's.
There is some consensus on the top groups but it's much more like that there will be podium surprises.

The Kiwis Peter Burling and Blair Tuke are continuing their rock solid run here in Hyeres. London Gold medallists Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen are back in Bermuda, but if anyone can beat the Kiwi's its likely have to be their Aussie rivals. Bet against New Zealand. Not likely.

Sime Fantela and Egor Marenic, the Croatian 470 Men's duo are the closest things Belcher and Ryan have to a nemesis, this week they will be seeking to shake the unshakeable confidence of yet another Victor Kovalenko coached 470 crew expected to win Gold. But it was a 2,1 first day for Australia crew. Belcher said ‘It was hairy out there and we are just happy we got through the day and posted two good ones without breaking anything.’

Back in 2000 the Ukrainian super coach, Victor Kovalenko with the thickest of thick Ukrainian accents, which to this scribe was Russian, patiently explained that World Domination was the key to Olympic Gold. 2015-2016 Enter Stage Right Belcher and Ryan, who have not been off the podium in this quad.

In the high speed classes, the potholes can be big ones. Ben Saxton and Nicola Groves, the British Nacra Team hit a pothole in Palma when a wild pitch pole in which Groves flying past the mast damaged her hand.

Now back in action the Brits believe Besson and Riou are not Rio shoo-in's, as they reminded us in an interview yesterday. They have been bested. (Get the pun, sorry yes its very subtle) twice this season.

Yesterday we talked to another of the top Nacra 17 pairing Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin (AUS) who similarly believe it will not be a French Cake-walk. While Besson was the first to semi-foil downwind, now the rest of the top group are doing the same and the field is tightening. The early leaders here in Hyeres were the Kiwi duo Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders, with Besson and Riou lurking in third place.

Giles Scott, the affable British Finn class superstar is not here in Hyeres, we suspect he sees no point in further exposing his winning technique to further class examination.

A very short Rio road for one of newbies in the Finn class Alan Julie from the Seychelles, a veteran Olympian first sailing in Savannah in 1996, then in Sydney, Athens, Beijing and onwards. Just Two months in the Finn class Julie, won African Continental qualification just weeks ago and will see the Rio venue for his first visit in July.

Alison Young, the lanky British Civil Engineer, fresh from her World Championship win in Mexico was immensely serious when we talked to her a few days ago, saying she’s not getting excited about her Rio chances yet, the Road is still long she says. Young was third after the first day's racing in Hyeres.

And the Rio pothole the no one wants to see was another British Laser World Champion Nick Thompson took the time to remind us, during a lengthy interview that in his 12 or 13 visits to Rio he has twice been bedridden for two days with diarrhoea and vomiting.

Yesterday we talked to the three times Hyeres Laser World Cup winner Tom Burton, World Ranked number one and Rio test event winner, who also felt Rio pollution could throw a spanner in the works at a whole range of levels and reminded us that Rio with four knot tidal differences is likely to be a very high scoring regatta and 'anything could happen in Rio’.

A reminder of the ‘anything’ hit Burton in his second race here on Day One when his rudder popped out on the last run in the strong winds, taking him back from fourth to ninth. As soon as the cover was on his boat he headed for the chandlery for a new pin. A first up win on day 2 and well placed in race 2 Burton could easily defend is proud Hyeres record.

In other words, 99 days down the tarmac on the road to Rio, the Fat Lady is still on vacation and is not expected in Marina Gloria until mid-August with a repeat visit at the end of the second week.

Watch out for our Hyeres interview series as the weeks and months count down from 99 to August 8th 2016.