Andy Rice It looks like Tokyo 2021 will happen despite the problems posed by a worldwide pandemic. This is good news but it offers up even more challenges for the competitors
W
here would Olympic sailing be without the Portuguese haven of Vilamoura? This resort in the Algarve has been the saviour of international competition for many of the Olympic classes while all else in Europe and most of the rest of the world has been cancelled. The 470 fleets had their Worlds there in March and are back on the same Atlantic waters for their European Championships just six weeks later. The Finns have just had their European Championships there and move to the north of Portugal for the Finn Gold Cup in Porto in early May. How relieved must the RYA selectors have been to have made such early calls on who would be going to Tokyo! Most of the British team was announced in September 2019 and the last to be announced was Elliot Hanson in the Laser at the end of February 2020, just as COVID was beginning to engulf Europe. The idea of carrying on with Olympic campaigning through a year of such uncertainty, not even knowing if you would earn selection - mentally that must have been very hard indeed. For the teams that have been battling for Tokyo qualification at events in Portugal and other venues such as Oman for the Asian nation selections, they will barely have time to hose down their boats after qualifying before they load their equipment into containers bound directly for Japan. With less than a hundred days to the start of the Games, it looks increasingly likely that the Olympics will take place in some form. But it will be the strangest, most soulless experience imaginable. Like an extreme form of lockdown but with TV cameras following their every move. A bit like the Truman Show, or Big Brother, or the Hunger Games, take your pick! There was due to be a World Cup event at the Olympic Regatta venue of Enoshima in June. Most sailors would have incorporated that warm-up event into a long training session, then fly home to rest and recuperate before travelling back out to Tokyo perhaps two to three weeks before the Opening Ceremony. Now the sailors are being told that the earliest they might be permitted to land in Tokyo is just five days before the first race. Five days to get used to a new time zone, to acclimatise to the high heat and energy-sapping humidity of mid-summer Tokyo, and five days to get boats and equipment out of 40ft containers, not to mention trying to get safely through the extensive measurement process without any hiccups. I can still remember the whining scream of multiple angle
grinders late into the night on the eve of the Olympic Regatta in Qingdao 2008. Most of the Star fleet had been ruled out of class and were engaged in a race against time to get their hulls into a legal shape before race one. The current crop of Olympic classes shouldn’t have too many problems, although recent years have seen some Nacra 17s struggle to pass the measurement process. That’s a headache that no one will have the time for in the short and frenetic build-up to this Olympic Regatta. Heading up the team is the RYA’s Olympic performance manager Mark Robinson, with the RYA’s director of racing Ian Walker operating in Tokyo as a floater, a ‘minister without portfolio’ as Ian described it to me. Ian is there to slot in to help in whatever way he’s needed, leaving Mark clear to run the scheduled, day-to-day operations. As one of the few nations to have sailors competing in all 10 events, the RYA’s declared medal target is between four to seven medals of any colour. That seems like a tall order, especially with all the curveballs that Tokyo could hurl at the athletes. Aside from all the uncertainty that COVID has brought into the equation, there is the extreme heat, the extreme waves and, according to team meteorologist Simon Rowell, the strong possibility of a typhoon and/or tsunami at that time of year. Whatever happens, I hope the media is given the freedom to cover the event and do justice to what could be the most spectacular sailing conditions ever experienced at an Olympic venue. Five years ago in Rio there was the travesty of all the TV cameras pointing at a postponement flag hanging limply over the inner race courses while on the other side of Sugarloaf Mountain the Finns and 470s were battling through the most monstrous waves that those experienced athletes had ever encountered in their careers. And no TV footage of such a wild day! The lack of spectators at the Games won’t affect sailing nearly so much as the stadium sports and if that’s what it takes to get this Games away, so be it. Currently I’m still down to be writing for World Sailing at the sailing venue, although I’m not holding my breath. Having attended the past three Games in Beijing, London and Rio it would be a shame to break the chain. But the most important thing is for the sailors and other athletes across every sport to get their chance to shine. If this has to be a Lockdown Games, it’s better than no Games at all. We sailors drew immense pleasure and inspiration from following the Vendée Globe and America’s Cup from afar. On a much grander scale, the 2021 Olympic Games have the potential to bring cheer and unity to the world at a time when it’s needed more than ever.
PHOTO RYA TEAMGB
‘HOW RELIEVED MUST THE RYA SELECTORS HAVE BEEN TO HAVE MADE SUCH EARLY CALLS ON TOKYO!’
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JUNE 2021 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
ANDY RICE As a sailing journalist and TV commentator Andy has unparalleled knowledge of the dinghy sailing scene, from grassroots to Olympic level
