Olympic Diary: August 2 - Botin/Trittel win Mens Skiff Gold Medal for Spain
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com/nz 2 Aug 05:09 PDT
2 August 2024
Spain leads New Zealand to win the Gold Medal - Medal race - Men's Skiff - 49er - Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing - Marseille, August 2, 2024 © World Sailing / Sander van der Borch
Spain's Diego Botin and Florian Trittel stamped their authority on the Medal Race in the Mens Skiff event (49er), from the start, and had an end to end win, assuring them of the Gold Medal in the event at Paris2024.
The win in Marseille came just over a fortnight after the pair had uplifted the US$2million winner-take-all cash prize at the SailGP Grand Final in San Francisco. So it had been quite a month.
In contrast to the Womens Medal Race, sailed a few minutes earlier, the Men had all their drama at the start.
The Irish crew of Sean Waddilove and Robert Dickson, were in second place on the leaderboard after completing the 12 race Qualification Series. Their task in the Medal race was to stay two places ahead of the Kiwi crew, of Isaac McHardie and William McKenzie (also known as the "McKiwis"), and the Silver medal was headed for the Emerald Isle.
The top three boats all shadowed each other at the start, at the Committee Boat end anticipating a match race. Unfortunately the Irish jumped the start, along with three others (Uruguay, Poland and Croatia) and had to return and restart.
Life had suddenly got very difficult for the Irish crew. Their best hope was that there would have been repeat of the previous day when the breeze decided to switch itself off mid-race, causing two race abandonments.
The McKiwis realised the Irish dilemma, and sailed a conservative race to take the Silver medal.
The Spanish and New Zealand crews both went to the left hand side of the course - keeping well clear of each other and other boats in the now six boat fleet. the Fantela brothers from Croatia were advised soon after the start that they had not restarted correctly and they withdrew from the race.
Sailing a 10kt southerly breeze, Botin/Trittel (ESP) led around the first mark followed by New Zealand and The Netherlands.
That order remained around Mark 2, but the breeze dropped to 7-8kts and shifted to the right, prompting a course change. The Kiwis opted for the right hand side of the course while the first two went left, and they came back together at Mark 3. Although they were clear ahead of the Dutch crew coming in on starboard, and had rounding rights at the Mark, McHardie and McKenzie sailed well clear of the mark, waving the trailing Dutch world champions through.
From there the win by Botin and Trittel was never in doubt, and all three were content to sail out the course, with the Spanish securing the Gold medal win and the Kiwis the Silver - repeating Peter Burling and Blair Tuke's result at Tokyo2020.
The Swiss crew were on their hip going around the final mark, and the Americans exercised their mark rounding rights, allowing them to set up for the finish ahead of a fast closing pack of Switzerland, Poland, Great Britain, Uruguay and Ireland.
Despite having to gybe to lay the finish line, the Americans sailed a well judged final stage - keeping clear air and and a few boatlengths between them and their hunters, who crossed the line in a heap.
In the end USA's Ian Barrows and Hans Henken won the Bronze Medal, with a place to spare.
For the Irish crew it was a case of so near but so far. But it was a big improvement on their Tokyo2020 performance, where they finished 11th - not making the cut for the Medal Race. However they could take some heart from the fact that at Tokyo2020 the new Gold Medalists also finished fourth.
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