1992
Barcelona worked hard to increase spector involvement in the games bring the race areas near to the shore. At a stroke a run down quarter of the Catalan city was revitalised with the main Olympic Village just across the road from a vast new marina from which the public could view from platforms and the breakwater. All this took place in the shadow of Frank Gehry’s stainless steel fish sculpture atop the swanky Hotel Arts next door to the marina.
Barcelona was a Spanish fiesta, a host nation’s most fervent wishes come true: four gold and a silver from nine classes, which had grown thanks to the addition of a women’s Windsurfer event. The Spanish team started training at the venue early, even whilst the marina was being built. Big cash bonuses were on offer to the medal winners too. King Juan Carlos, himself a competitor in the 1972 Olympics declared the Games open and Luis Doreste swore the Olympic Oath on behalf of all athletes. Inspiring? Doreste won the Flying Dutchman class.
The King’s children, Christina had competed in the 1988 Games as Tornado crew and Crown Prince Felipe was middle man in the Spanish Soling in 1992, eventually finishing 6th.
The Soling was now a slightly schizophrenic class, starting the competition with fleet racing before moving into match-racing for the medal stages. An unintended consequence of this was that Kiwi Russell Coutts, who had risen by then to the top of the world match race rankings, became the most-tacked-upon sailor in Barcelona as his rivals succeeded in preventing Coutts making the cut.
Doreste’s fellow gold medallists were Teresa Zabell and Begonia via Dufresne in the Women’s 470 and Jordi Calafat and Kiki Sanchez in the Men’s fleet; Jose Marie van der Ploeg in the Finn. The silver went to Natalia via Dufresne in the newly introduced Women’s singlehander, the Europe.
1996 Atlanta
The sailing competition took place in Savannah was 240 miles south-east of Atlanta. The administration base on Tybee Island was created five miles out of town from where another three-mile ferry journey was needed to reach the temporary Olympic Marina on Wilmington Island. Further still was a day marina, built of out barges towed around from the Mississippi, was moored near Williamson Island. Finally contestants sailed into the shallow, murky waters of Wassaw Sound for the racing.
Convective activity played havoc at the start of the regatta, with a furious lightning storm coming through on practice day and only three of eight races possible on the first day. Thunderstorms and light winds totalled up to make this a difficult regatta in terms of both commuting and competing. Nonetheless 22 nations shared the 30 medals available.
Mitch Booth became Australia’s first multi-medallist. Having won the bronze in the Tornado class in Barcelona with John Forbes, Booth got the silver with Andrew Landenberger. In between, Booth and Forbes had a major falling out with the selection for the 1996 Australian Tornado spot ending up the courts.
Following Spain’s host nation success proved difficult for the US Sailing Team. Jeff Madrigali and Courtney Becker-Dey won bronze in the Soling and Europe, but the were only American successes.
Among the conspicuous new faces was Mateusz Kusnierewicz winning the Finn gold for Poland, Greece’s Nikolas Kaklamanakis the windsurfing (now using Lechner equipment) gold with Israel’s Gal Fridman taking the bronze, Spain’s Teresa Zabell winning a second successive 470 Women’s gold but with Japan’s Alicia Kinoshita and Yumiko Shige in the silver position, Ukrainians Yevhen Braslavets and Ihor Matviyenko the Men’s 470 gold and Lee Lai Shan the Windsurfing Women’s medal. Hong Kong was in transition from British colony to autonomous region of China and it was the tiny Asian state’s first gold in any sport.
2000 Sydney
Sydney put sailing back on the map. How could it fail, given the world famous harbour and its iconic buildings and bridge? A great natural amphitheatre, Sydney harbour was a tricky place to sail, though many of its patterns could be learnt. The difficult course proved to the one just inside the Heads, where the wind swirled and waves rebounded, and the outside course in the Tasman, which often featured a rolling swell under a weak breeze. With sydney rich maritime heritage a marina of temporary pontoons was the perfect solution as Rushcutters Bay was taken over by a tented village right in the heartbeat of Australian yachting.
The Australian Yachting Federation hired Ukrainian 470 coach Victor “Medal Maker” Kuvalenko and results were perfect. Reigning world champions Tom King and Mark Turnbull won the Men’s fleet and Jenny Armstrong and Belinda Stowell the women’s fleet. John Forbes, the 1992 Tornado bronze medallist teamed up with Darren Bundock to take silver this time, whilst Michael Blackburn improved from his 4th in 1996 and bronze in the Laser.
Blackburn can’t have fancied his chances of gold because the Laser class had become totally dominated by Brazil’s Robert Scheidt and Briton Ben Ainslie. Between 1995 and 2005, Scheidt had won a staggering eight world titles in the Laser. The only man to beat him in that period was Ainslie in 1998 and 1999.
In Savannah, Scheidt finessed an impatient 19-year old Ainslie into a very clever premature start. In was the third attempt to get the race away and so the Black Flag was flying. Ainslie hounded Scheidt yet again and the Brazilian took both of them across early. Scheidt could afford another discard to win the gold, Ainslie couldn’t and won silver. Ainslie turned the tables in Sydney. No matter that the Soling was the designated match race class, these Laser sailors were at it like alley cats. The boathandling was breath taking. Ainslie tacked and tacked upon Scheidt’s wind forcing him down the fleet. When Ainslie released his man, it was all about finishing positions. As Ainslie crossed the line, he looked back anxiously to count in the boats behind and it took several minutes before he was sure he’d won the gold.
Ainslie was one of three gold for Britain, which was top nation. Shirley Robertson, in her third visit to the Games in the Europe replaced anxiety with serenity and won gold. So did Iain Percy in the Finns with Ian Walker winning silver in the Star with Mark Covell whilst Ian Barker and Simon Hiscocks got another silver in the brand new twin-wire, high-performance skiff class, the 49er, a product of fertile Australian design family, the Bethwaites.
Walker and Covell’s medal was emotionally charged. Each had lost their previous sailing partners: Walker had won 470 silver in Savannah with John Merricks who’d been killed during a road accident during the 1997 Melges 24 world championships and Covell’s Star helmsman, Glyn Charles, was one of six who perished in the 1998 Sydney-Hobart Race.
2004 Athens
Full circle for the modern Olympics as they returned to Athens. The sailing venue was at Agios Cosmos, some 14km south of Athens city centre and close to the old airport. A harbour was built here in the 1960s and it was expanded and modernised for the Games into a huge venue. When a Meltemi blew it flushed out the Athens city bowl and the Acropolis was in clear view from the course area. Other times, notably in the second week of competition, the sea breeze was the dominant force and became weaker the closer courses were to Piraeus. Sailors had different views of their Athens experience, correlated to whether they got the best of the first week’s breeze or worst of the second week’s.
This is certainly true of the Star class where most reckoned the 11-race series split into the five good sailing days and six frustrating ones. All the more reason to marvel at Brazilian Torben Grael’s performance in taking the gold; Grael’s feel for the breeze is uncanny. Analyse the legs of each race and Grael, with his long-standing crew Marcel Ferreira, gained on nearly 75%. Even if Grael was well placed in the fleet in terms of key rivals, he often backed his ability, raced the breeze and not his opponents. Quite outstanding.
So too was Britain’s Ben Ainslie, like Grael, one of the great Olympians of modern times. Having outgrown the Laser, Ainslie had moved into the Finn, jumped straight to the top of the class and was clear favourite for another gold. His first two races were weak with conservative starts and some missed shifts. Then he tangled with Guillaume Florent whom he crossed on port tack believing the Frenchman had waved him through. Ainslie was DSQ and was 19th after two races, his two discards effectively used. He responded with a breathtaking display of sailing. His starts were courageous and inch perfect, he was in sync with the shifts and Ainslie picked-off competitors at will. It was a bravura display.
With Ainslie out of the Laser, Robert Scheidt utterly dominated the class to win his third medal and second gold.
An old class, the 1967 Yngling designed by Jan Linge hot on the heels of his larger Soling, having won the IYRU Olympic selection trials, was brought in for 2004 as the Women’s fleet racing keelboat. It drew many former Europe competitors with Shirley Robertson winning with a race to spare. It was a second gold for her as it was for Roman Hagara and Hans Peter Steinacher in the Tornado, the catamaran having reinvented itself with twin-trapezes, reconfigured mainsail and jib and the addition of a spinnaker and seen off new classes in Evaluation Trials.
Greek celebrations were ecstatic when Sofia Bekatorou and Aimilia Tsoulfa won the 470 Women’s class, backed up by the 1996 gold medalist Nikolaos Kaklamanakis winning the silver in the Mistral windsurfer behind Israel’s Gal Friedman, who won the bronze in 1996.
Though match racing had been dropped from the Games, Americans Kevin Burnham and Paul Foerster were engaged in one by Britons Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield for the 470 Men’s gold, the result going the Americans’ way. Forester had won Flying Dutchman silver 12 years earlier in Barcelona.
Despite the best laid plans for making the venue accessible to the public through a walkway, breakwater and specially created medal ceremony amphitheatre, the Greek authorities had a late change of mind and one of sailing’s best ever facilities become a secure encampment.
|
