Final country places secured for Rio 2016

As the final boats crossed the finish line in Palma de Mallorca, Spain at the Trofeo S.A.R Princesa Sofia IBEROSTAR, it signalled the end of a long road of Olympic qualification with the final few country places confirmed.

Two years ago at the 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championships in Santander, Spain, the first sailors qualified their countries taking the first step to Rio 2016, and the qualification came full circle on a two year trip around the world to finish where it started, in Spain, and thus closing out the qualifying country list for the Rio summer bonanza and the Olympic sailing competition.

From the 2014 World Championships to Class Worlds in 2015, the Rio 2016 qualification system was the first to introduce continental qualifying. Helping to make the total number of countries 61, the spread of countries comes from across all the continents and is thanks to continental qualifying events such as the Men’s 470 African Championships.

The last country places came last week, and the list of qualifiers from the Palma event range from the young guns, like current Youth World Laser Radial champion, Maria Erdi (HUN) to the seasoned campaigner, four time Olympian Allan Julie (SEY), and they will be part of the 380 athletes across 10 disciplines that will be on the start line out of the Marina de Gloria.

As some sailors fought for a country place, some had already been confirmed before the racing started in Palma as spots were reallocated through African non attendance. The countries that benefitted from this were Belgium in the 49er, Ireland in the 49erFX and Switzerland in the 470 Women.

Although the qualification process may be over, we still do not yet know which sailors will be taking those places as national selection processes continue around the world. There are also the two Tripartite places in both Laser Standard and Laser Radial available which the IOC will confirm in the coming weeks, so the number of countries involved in the sailing competition may yet still rise.

The most recent, and final qualifiers from the Trofeo S.A.R Princesa Sofia are:

470 Men
Europe – Borys Shvets & Pavlo Matsuyev (UKR)
 
470 Women
Europe – Gil Cohen & Nina Amir (ISR)
 
Finn
Europe – Alican Kaynar (TUR)
Africa – Allan Julie (SEY)
 
49erFX
Europe – Noora Ruskola & Camilla Cedercreutz (FIN)
 
49er
Europe – Victor Bergstrom & Niclas During (SWE)
 
Nacra 17
Europe – Sofia Bekatorou & Michalis Pateniotis (GRE)
Africa – Hedi Gharbi & Rihab Hammami (TUN)
 
Laser Radial
Europe – Maria Erdi (HUN)
Europe – Sara Carmo (POR)
 
Laser
Europe – Sergey Komissarov (RUS)
Europe – Viktor Teply (CZE)
 
RS:X Women
Europe – Sara Cholnoky (HUN)
 
RS:X Men
Europe – Luka Mratovic (CRO)
Europe – Artem Javadav (BLR)

See the qualification criteria for Rio 2016 here
For a full list of qualified Nations click here