Paris 2024 Day 5: Five Things We Learned

Sadistic Island

There’s a myth that the Marquis de Sade was once imprisoned in the château on the Île d’If. Whether or not that’s true, what’s undeniable is how the wind shadow of the rocky island and 16th century château inflicted a sadistic wind shadow on the poor competitors attempting to complete the Marathon Race in the Women’s Windsurfing. For the first part of the 60-minute race the iQFOiL fleet was flying across the Bay of Marseille at high speed until they drew close to the dreaded island. As the breeze petered out, it became increasingly difficult for the riders to make progress in low-riding, non-foiling mode, and the race was abandoned.

Winning by a lot, winning by a little in the windsurfing

There couldn’t be a greater contrast in the scoreboards of the men’s and women’s windsurfing. After a dramatic afternoon of tight racing, Australia’s Grae Morris has squeaked into the lead by a point ahead of Poland’s Pawel Tarnowski, and there’s just six points separating the top four. Emma Wilson, on the other hand, continues to knock out win after win in the short-course racing. The Briton sits on 11 points compared with closest rival Sharon Kantor from Israel who has 30 points. How different it might have been, though, had Kantor – who was comfortably in the lead of the double-points Marathon Race – been able to put those vital points in the bank.

Women’s Skiff – Five in the fight for Gold

The points for Thursday’s medal race in the 49erFX look very tight. The French will be wearing the yellow bib although with the double-points value of the Medal Race, the Dutch being two points behind means these two frontrunners go in level pegging. It’s a who-beats-who scenario, although it’s not a match race between these two because also in the hunt for gold are Sweden, Norway and even the young team from Germany. Italy can’t get to gold but they could still fight their way to bronze. “Bring us a Mistral, 25 knots of wind, and we will fight for it,” said Italian helm Jana Germani.

Men’s Skiff – Seven in the fight for Gold, all 10 in for a medal

This never happens. Sometimes the medals are pretty much decided before the Medal Race is even run. But not this time. One of the tightest showdowns we’ve ever seen in Olympic sailing competition. While Spain go into the final day with the yellow bibs, they’ll have a fight on their hands with Ireland in second and New Zealand in third. While the prospect of taking the Olympic title starts to become mathematical rather than realistic further down the leaderboard, it’s still theoretical possible for the USA, Poland, Croatia and Great Britain yet to steal the gold. The other three teams in the Medal Race – Switzerland, Uruguay and China – have the most outside of shots at a bronze medal.

A Twist in the Tail…

Bart Lambriex and Floris van de Werken came to the Games as three-time World Champions and favourites for the gold medal in the 49er. The Dutch won one of today’s races comfortably but some lacklustre finishes in the other races saw them miss the Medal Race by a single point. Except that there was another late-night twist to the story as the Chinese 49er team were disqualified after failing a measurement check, which sees the Dutch reinstated into 10th place and a spot in the Medal Race after all.

written by Andy Rice