3 questions to Rytis Jasiunas

27/08/2024

Rytis Jasiunas came 17th in the iQFOiL event at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, but what he will remember most of all is having experienced a rare moment in a sportsman's career. With the added honour of being the flag bearer for his country, Lithuania! A few weeks later, speaking to Windsurfjournal.com, he looks back on this unique experience and this very special competition...

Windsurfjournal.com: How would you describe this experience of taking part in the Olympic Games, and what are the highlights you'll remember?
Rytis Jasiunas: Taking part in the Olympics is of course one of a kind experience. The highlight for me would be being the flag bearer for Lithuania during the opening ceremony. Overall the whole event was organised great and as an athlete you were really feeling taken care of. Too bad that this organization and professionalism wasn't carried over to on the water operations, the race organization was really poor. Another highlight was being amongs the best athletes in the whole world, wherever you looked in Marseille or Paris village you were looking at Olympic and World champions and overall the humans that are the best in the world at what they do. That was really inspiring.

WJ: What are the similarities, but also the big differences, with the PWA World Tour that you're used to taking part in?
RJ: Probably the similarities are having fans and at least during the medal race trying to make the racing close to shore and easy to view. That is really a core focus part of PWA and during the medal race it was super awesome to see thousands of people on the beach watching the race. Once again, that focus on spectator friendliness was slightly missing during the rest of the race week. The biggest difference from PWA would be the conditions in which we race, in PWA we go to locations with much better wind conditions, and we don't race in such light conditions. For sure, PWA could learn a bit from us and push the light wind racing a bit more, but not as much as we are currently pushing in iQFOiL.

WJ: This iQFOiL Olympic event wasn't very lucky with the weather conditions... What sporting and personal lessons have you learned from this competition?
RJ: Yes, as expected for the end of July in Marseille the conditions were not great, but having a race director that is organising iQFOiL regatta for the first time did not help. Also, the whole attitude from PRO and RC was pretty arrogant and 'we know better' than athletes and coaches - with regard to choices of location for the racing area, choice of racing discipline and similar... That lead to multiple mistakes. Really sad… As for sporting lessons, I need to get better at strategy and tactics in course racing, as well as stay more consistent overall. Nonetheless, I hope to come back for the highest level of racing in Los Angeles 2028.