Paris 2024 Day 3: Five Things We Learned

Today saw a little piece of Olympic sailing history with the first ever slalom races in Windsurfing. When there’s enough wind for iQFOiL racing, it’s fast and furious.

Black Flag Disqualifications are expensive. Regatta favourite in the men’s windsurfing, Luuc van Opzeeland from The Netherlands, blotted his copybook with a BFD in the opening iQFOiL race. There were five BFD boats in Race 4 of the Women’s Skiff, including Brazil’s double Olympic Champions Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze.

Peter Burling and Blair Tuke won silver, gold, silver in the Men’s Skiff at the last three Olympic Regattas. Currently fellow New Zealanders are maintaining the pattern, with Isaac McHardie and Will McKenzie holding the gold medal position with a 10-point lead over the Irish in second.

Between them, France’s Sarah Steyaert and Charline Picon have one female coach, three daughters between the ages of three and seven, and a 10-point advantage at the top of the 49erFX leaderboard. The last regatta of their professional sailing careers could hardly be going better.

It was the hottest day of the Olympic Games so far, 10 degrees hotter than the weather in Paris, but the people of Marseille turned out in force. They can’t get enough of it.