Steering My Olympic Course

Steering My Olympic Course celebrates the achievements of women in sailing who have made it to the peak of the sport either as a competitor, race official, international judge or in a technical role.

Mina Stanikic (Serbia)

Mina represented the Serbian national team for the first time in 2006, sailing in Optimist at the Balkan Championship in Karamursel, Turkey. A year later she began occasional training and attending events in Italy with SVBG from Trieste and coach, Dragan Gasic. Dragan’s coaching played a crucial role in boosting her self-confidence on the international stage.

In 2023, she chaired an International Jury and signed an IJ reference for the first time – also the first occasion where a 30-year-old woman chaired an event predominantly comprised of men eligible for the masters age category.

Mina has been selected as an International Official at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

 

“ Considering and applying multiple rules simultaneously compelled me to pursue a career as an International Judge ”

Dr Sophia Papamichalopoulos (Cyprus)

Sophia is an International Olympic Committee Young Leader and Olympic alpine skier who competed at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games together with her brother. After graduating from the Paracelsus Medical University of Salzburg she is now a resident doctor at the Department of Visceral Surgery and Transplantation at the University Hospital in Zurich. Alongside her medical career, she tries to remain engaged in sports and the Olympic Movement. In 2018 she was appointed to the World Sailing Medical Commission.

In her work as an IOC Young Leader, Sophia founded “Winds of Change”, a project aiming to create the first bi-communal Cypriot sailing team that will sail around the divided island together.

 

“ Leading the Winds of Change project was one of my proudest moments ”

Khouloud Masry (Egypt)

Khouloud started sailing to follow in her big brother’s footsteps with the aim of becoming a national champion like him – but little did she know that this dream would be a lot bigger and a lot harder than she ever thought. She became the first Egyptian to qualify for the Youth Olympic games in sailing, but later missed out on qualification for Rio 2016 by a very small margin. Afterwards, she joined the World Sailing Emerging Nations Program (ENP) in Durban, South Africa, which led to the Youth World Championship in Auckland, New Zealand. In 2019, she made history by becoming the first female Egyptian sailor to qualify for the Olympics, competing in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

After the games she graduated with a degree in Engineering and has now broken her own record by becoming the first female Egyptian sailor to qualify for two consecutive Olympic games and to win an African title.

 

“ I was so proud to become the first Egyptian to qualify for the Youth Olympic Games in sailing ”

Line Flem Høst (Norway)

Line grew up in a sailing family and has been on boats since childhood. She received her very own Optimist for her ninth birthday and within three years was representing Norway. She soon discovered that sailing was a sport where girls can perform just as well as boys and developed a love of battling the elements. Sailing at a young age was a chance to have fun with friends while spending time outdoors. Line represented Norway at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in the Laser Radial event, and again at Paris 2024 – this time winning bronze in the ILCA 6 and sharing the podium with two of her biggest idols.

She says her goal is to one day inspire the future generation in the same way she has been and see more young girls take up sailing competitively.

 

“ My dreams as a young sailor was to have fun with friends while spending time outdoors doing what I loved ”

Kate Drummey (USA)

A sailor and coach in college, Kate always wanted to combine the Olympics with sailing. She graduated from college with degrees in English and French, interned with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic organisations, and in 2015, she became Olympics Coordinator with U.S. Sailing, rising to become the organisation’s Olympics operations manager. Since joining the sailing team, Drummey has been to three Olympics: Rio, Tokyo, and most recently Paris.

In this role, she has shipped the athletes’ boats across the Atlantic Ocean to competition waters in the Marseille Bay and assumed the title of deputy team leader when she arrived in Marseille herself.

With the next Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Kate will be looking at a fourth Olympics in home waters.

 

“ When people asmed me what I anted to be when I grew up, I told them I wanted to plan the Olympics! ”