Olympic Diary: July 26, 2024 - Good breeze for the first week
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com/nz 25 Jul 05:36 PDT
28 July - 8 August 2024
IQFoil - Olympic training - Marseille - Paris2024 Olympic Regatta - July 24, 2024 © Gilles Martin-Raget
The long range weather forecast from Predictwind promises fresh breezes blowing from the west, for most of the first week of the Paris2024 Sailing Olympics.
On Sunday, Day 1 of the Olympic Regatta, Predictwind - which is the weather partner for the 2024 America's Cup - shows a light breeze from the NW of 4kts in the morning, increasing to a Westerly of 6kts - 9kts in the afternoon, before dying away in the evening.
On Monday it is slightly stronger at 3kts- 9kts from the NW in the morning, going to 3kts - 13kts in the afternoon from the SW.
On Tuesday the serious stuff starts with winds up to 17kts in the morning, increasing to 18kts in the afternoon with gusts to 20kts and gusting to 22kts in the afternoon.
At this stage that is a typical pattern for the rest of the week. At this stage, NW winds are forecast to be gusting to 35kts from 1300hrs onwards on Saturday, making racing unlikely. Temperatures are expected to be in the high 20s°C.
We'll have a more up to date forecast over the coming two days.
Four events will sail on the first day - the Mens and Womens Windsurfer, and the Mens and Womens Skiff.
The Mens and Womens Windsurfers are scheduled to have four races each in what are likely to be the lightest conditions of the week. Their racing is scheduled for 1013hrs UTC. The two Skiff events are scheduled to sail three races each - but with a later start.
The racing continues daily for both fleets, with the Mens Skiff scheduled to hold its Medal Race on Thursday afternoon, followed by the Womens Skiff.
The Mens and Womens Dinghy (ILCA 7 and ILCA 6), start their regatta on Thursday, with a new event the Mixed Dinghy (470) starting in Friday.
On Friday the Mens and Womens Windsurfers go through a series of Quarter and Semi Finals, before sailing the Final to determine the Medalists.
First look at the iQFoil
The opening days of the regatta will reflect the changes that have been made in the Olympic class line-up, which were voted in by World Sailing in November 2019.
The fleets are gender equal numerically with 24 entries in each of the Mens and Womens Windsurfer - which is being sailed on a new class, or "equipment" in Olympic-speak. In this instance it's the iQFoil - a foiling windsurfer, which replaces the RS:X, which was first used in for the 2008 Olympics in Qingdao, China.
Running down the entry list, for both the Mens and Womens boards it doesn't seem appear that too many competitors from Tokyo2020 have crossed over into the new class, to join the foiling world. Picking winners in the new class is a fraught exercise.
The new GOAT?
The situation is quite different for the Mens and Womens Two Person Skiff.
The Womens skiff will be the centrepiece of the regatta - with the focal point being whether the Brazilian crew of Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze can win their third Gold medal in the 49erFX. The class was introduced at the 2016 Olympics. The Brazilian crew won their first Gold medal that year, on their home waters in Rio De Janeiro, in a thrilling finish against a New Zealand crew. Grael and Kunze repeated their Gold Medal win five years later at Tokyo2020. Will they do it again in 2024 - to become the most successful Olympic female sailors of all time?
The Mens event is the complete opposite, with the Gold and Silver medalists from Tokyo2020 sailing in the America's Cup, which starts a couple of weeks after the Olympics. The field is wide open. Erik Heil - a double bronze medalist, and maybe heir apparent - now helms the German team on the SailGP circuit. The key interest point will be whether SailGP Season 4 champion skipper Diego Botin (EDP) can repeat the feat and win the Gold Medal in the 49er class. In case you were wondering, Diego is the nephew of Marcelino Botin, a top America's Cup designer and Design Chief for American Magic.
While it is easy to fiddle through the form book to come up with some potential winners, if the breeze stays as fresh as forecast, then boat handling ability will probably determine the medalists in both skiff classes.
Few who witnessed the Medal in race in the 2008 Olympics in Qingdao, sailed in strong winds, and steep seas, will ever forget the outcome.
Every competitor capsized - most in spectacular fashion. The Gold Medal was won by the Danish crew who started over four minutes late in a Swedish boat - but stayed upright.
It was one of the most bizarre races in Olympic sailing history.
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