July 20, 2024
6 minutes reading time
53 Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca by Iberostar. © Sailing Energy / Princesa Sofía Mallorca
03 April, 2024
Vilma Bobeck and Rebecca Netzler: How one phone call changed two lives
Vilma Bobeck could have been forgiven for thinking her competitive sailing days were behind her when she received a call from Rebecca Netzler in 2022.
After all, Bobeck hadn’t sailed for two years and had moved from her home in Stockholm to the north of Sweden to begin studying at university, her life on the water seemingly in the rear-view mirror.
Two years on, it’s safe to say sailing is back at the forefront of Bobeck’s mind. Since joining forces with Netzler, the pair have conquered the world and are now gearing up for an Olympic debut in Marseille.
That phone call from Netzler was a good one to make – and a sliding doors moment for both.
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Hold the line
It wasn’t just Bobeck who was considering her future in a boat after the Tokyo cycle.
“We had both split with our (sailing) partners,” Netzler begins. “It felt quite fresh to have some time away and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue.
“But because of the postponement of Tokyo, Paris was only two or three years away.
“When it came to Vilma, everyone I spoke to would say ‘why have you two never sailed together before?’. I knew everyone wanted this but I just wanted to be sure both of us had the fire to continue.
“I made a very random phone call and told Vilma ‘I want to continue with you, if you want to’. I was just telling her I was available if she wanted.”
On the other end of the line, Bobeck needed time to mull it over.
“I was really shocked, to be honest,” she said. “We hadn’t talked for over a year and I hadn’t sailed for two years.
“I had started university and got on with life after sailing. I was thinking ‘do I want to go again, do I have it in me?’.
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“And then I thought that if I could pick anyone to sail with, it would be Rebecca. I couldn’t say yes on that first phone call but my gut feeling was just like, OK, here we go again. It’s been working out quite nicely ever since.”
College life
The pair knew of each other long before they linked up in the boat.
They may be from opposite ends of Sweden – Netzler hails from Ostersunds in the north, while Bobeck grew up in the capital – but both attended the Motala sailing school.
“Because of the age difference (two years) as teenagers, it wasn’t really that we were hanging out,” Netzler said.
“Neither of us would have thought that we were sitting here going to our first Olympics together. It’s kind of a sweet story.”
Netzler left home aged 16 to hone her craft at Motala having first discovered sailing through her mother picking up a flyer for a summer school.
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She was instantly hooked but her geographical location made practice – and travelling to events – challenging.
“I was quite lucky, as we were a group of four sailors and we just drove across Sweden to do the regattas,” she said.
“We spent a lot of time in the car and I’m so thankful that these parents did that, as my parents could never join because of work.
“Even though it felt quite young when I moved away, I felt like I was quite grown up.
“The toughest thing was not being able to go home at weekends, but it made me make a lot of friends in the city.
“Of course it was tough, and maybe I didn’t do all the homework I should have done. But somehow it worked.”
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Bobeck’s was perhaps a more traditional route into sailing. She followed her dad and older sister on to the water at the KSSS Yacht Club, taking her first steps aged 10 on a journey which would ultimately lead her to the top of the world.
Dutch delight
Netzler and Bobeck’s partnership gelled quickly. They earned European bronze and World Championship silver in 2022, before upgrading the latter to stand on top of the podium in The Hague last summer.
“That was just a really amazing feeling,” Bobeck said. “It was hard to take in at the time and even now, looking back at it, it’s kind of hard to take in because it was such an outstanding performance.
“We were really happy and just to step up to the top of the podium was quite cool. Hearing the Swedish national anthem play was amazing, so that’s something we want to hear again this summer.”
Their chances of defending their crown in Lanzarote suffered a dramatic blow when Netzler fell out the boat on the fourth day of competition.
That meant an unexpected – and unwanted – test of her swimming skills to rejoin Bobeck on board but despite the mishap, they recovered to win silver for a third successive World Championship medal.
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“It was devastating at the time, but we were so focused on just hitting back,” Netzler said.
“I thought we did a great job of fighting back in the remaining race. We tried to keep it as tight as possible and though it just wasn’t enough for gold, we were really happy with a medal after all the drama.”
Olympic Dreams
Gold in The Hague sealed an Olympic quota spot and took the pressure off heading into 2024.
They head to Marseille with realistic medal ambitions and Bobeck, who grew up absorbing the summer and winter Games, is not shying away from their ultimate goal.
“We are not afraid to talk about what we want,” she said. “But we’re also open and humble in that it is our first Olympics.
“We have no experience in this kind of regatta, so even though we believe and we have a lot of confidence, anything can happen and points can go very quickly.
“But we are aiming high and if we are happy with our performance, we will be pleased no matter the outcome.
“Sweden is such a winter sports country, so most of my memories are from watching the Winter Olympics, even though I picked a summer sport.
“But from a very young age, I remember the (summer) Olympics happening and thinking ‘why are we not outside playing these sort of things’? And my parents would say ‘this is only every four years, we must watch it and support’.
“It was such a big thing back home, so watching that, realising how big it was, I realised it was my dream too.”