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Olympic Diary: August 5 - Olympic Sailing has a new Queen

by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com/nz 6 Aug 11:58 BST 6 August 2024
Marit Bouwmeester - (NED) - Womens Dinghy - ILCA 6 - Day 9 - Marseille - Paris2024 Olympic Regatta - August 5, 2024 © World Sailing / Sander van der Borch

The fresh breezes of Saturday and Sunday were too good to last, and sadly on Monday, Marseille returned to being Marseille, with light winds, race delays and brilliant sunlight.

One of the features of this Olympics has been to admire the scenery, if the on the water action becomes tedious, or during the lengthy delays. It's the same for the Host City, Paris and the helicopter shots of some of the world's most notable landmarks are something else.

But August 5 won't be remembered for checking the accuracy of the tourist brochures. It will entered into the Sailing History books as the day veteran Dutch sailor, Marit Bouwmeester, became the greatest of all time in womens Olympic sailing. Her second Gold Medal, adds to her two Silver slipping her past Britain's Hannah Mills, who won Gold medals in Rio and Tokyo and Silver in London. Both won their first Olympic medals in Weymouth in 2012. Bouwmeester continued for one more Olympiad, to win her second Gold and fourth Olympic medal.

On the same day Denmark's Anne-Marie Rindom won her fourth Olympic medal - adding to her set of Gold, Silver and Bronze. Both achievements are remarkable, and with women only having limited involvement in the sailing squads of professional teams, it could well be that in time a female Olympic sailor becomes truly the open greatest of all time (across both genders), with the Olympics remaining he achievable pinnacle of women's sailing.

Bouwmeester's win came on a day, like so many in Marseille where a breeze was slow to develop, and postponements were made across most courses, resulting in fewer races being sailed, or race officials using all their expertise to get racing started, or continued. However even they have their limits. And to their credit they didn't hesitate to get out the "N" flag during a race in which there had been a significant shift, or the wind just turned off, and the fairness of the competition was affected.

Bouwmeester's latest win was emphatic - by a margin of 21pts over Rindom - and except for her last two races, in the nine race series Bouwmeester had a string of top four placings - returning an 11th in Race 8, and her discard being a 20th in Race 9. She will compete in the Medal race on Wednesday - wind willing.

The surprise of the day came in the Mixed Multihull where the Italian crew of Ruggero Tita and Catarina Banti recording two 6th places, along with another win, their sixth in Race 7. However with three races left to sail, plus the double points scoring Medal Race, the Italians, on paper at least, suddenly look beatable, with only a 14pt margin advantage on the leaderboard in the 19 boat fleet.

As we saw in the first week, in the 49ers, a 10pt margin can vanish in just one race. Two crews from Argentina and New Zealand are on 28pts, and there would seem to be a lot of golf left in this hole. Early racing on Tuesday will give two crews the opportunity to close the gap, and also for Tita and Banti to make a return to form and resume adding to their points margin.

The best seat in the house

Although we haven't watched a Sailing Olympics live on TV for 20 years, but do catch up after the event, this year's coverage seems to have made a step up - and the Sailing is very watchable.

The most obvious addition is the use of the SailGP Virtual Graphics system, with the overlays adding a lot to the viewing experience - exemplified by the finish of the Womens Skiff, when the Dutch got the finish line position wrong. With the finish line graphic overlays, the Dutch error was clear to everyone - except the Dutch. Of course then there was the dramatic scrambled recovery, and have they, haven't they won the Gold medal, or had the flying Swedes done enough?

The change in colour of the start line, after the starting signal, accompanied by a good perspective from a drone camera - lets the viewer see exactly what is happening - or about to happen, removing a lot of the witch-craft from the viewing experience - which becomes very obvious. The other graphics used in the America's Cup since 1992 and SailGP, have been brought across to the television. As in the Cup and SailGP they make the sport easier to follow, but also increase the viewer emotion, as it is easy to see mistakes or winning moves, on screen, as they happen - rather than waiting for a delayed commentary explanation, or talked through in a post race interview.

But moments like that aside, overall there seems to be a more intimate view of the racing, and probably better than you get on the water - even from a photoboat.

The addition of more cameras including on the helmets of Kite and iQFoil sailors, has made a difference. And if you look carefully there are more cameras. The use of hand-held cameras on committee boats takes the viewer backstage - to see what happens when the races are stopped started and postponed.

The drone footage is another big gain, without hearing the thunk-thunk of camera helicopters coming over the audio. When on the photoboat you are very aware of the noise level, which is loud and distracting. The inclusion of drones have made it easier for sailors to hear what is being said on board, and for normal conversations to be held - which are surprising in their brevity.

Early on the regatta, a remarkable period in the coverage occurred when the regular commentators were absent. The volume was wound up on the on the onboard audio, such as it is, and for 15-20 minutes the only commentary came from the crews.

Identifying who was saying what, was easy - the director just held a shot which clearly identified the boat and crew, which the viewer could subconsciously confirm by their accents, and held that audio identification as the camera shifted to a wider angle, but the audio remained. Now you could hear what was coming up - so every move was signalled before it was made and the viewer was ahead of the on screen action, rather than being behind.

After the 2021 Olympics, OBS who provide the host broadcast for sailing, won gold in the Best Olympic Sport Coverage by the Host Broadcast category of the International Olympic Committee's Golden Rings Awards. Can they do it again?

Who is the fairest of them all?

With start of the Kites, yesterday, rounded out the 10 Olympic Sailing events.

As a spectacle they were disappointing - the issue being that is difficult to get a shot with both kite and rider. For sure they are putting plenty of pressure on the riders, who look like they are having their arms pulled out of their sockets. But obviously they need to be assessed on more than just a single light breeze day.

For all, it remains to be seen post-Olympics.

"It all looks very European" was IOC President Thomas Bach's comment made in sailing commentator Andy Rice's earshot, after Bach looked at a result sheet.

Read into that comment what you will.

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