There s a big commotion!

01/08/2024

The 4th day of the iQFOiL Paris 2024 Olympic Games event was a gruelling one for the competitors, with 4 Slalom races after a women's Marathon earlier in the day. A Marathon that will go down as the week's major setback... In the women's race, Emma Wilson maintained her lead, followed by Sharon Kantor, while Hélène Noesmoen had her best day of the week. In the men's race, Australian Grae Morris took the lead and benefited from the setbacks suffered by the favourites, including the major one suffered by Nicolas Goyard, now 15th.

The race directors of the iQFOiL event are ambitious on this Wednesday, and the decision has been taken to launch the Marathon on this 4th day of competition in Marseille. On the programme: a course at least 1 hour long, making the most of the bay of Marseille and all its possibilities. The declared aim (which is the very essence of the Olympic Games, let's not forget!) is to make images and, while we're at it, beautiful images! The wind was still blowing from the south to south-east, but it wasn't as strong as the day before. But what was shaping up to be THE race of the week quickly turned into a major flop. One of the ‘natural’ buoys was the Château d'If (22 metres high), a course marker that the women, who set off first, had a hard time rounding to leeward. Even if the initial intention is good, the course is too long, in a wind known to be unstable and, above all, very badly positioned. And the image of the race was simply disastrous. The official announcement said that the race had been cancelled because the wind had died down during the race, but the Principal Race Officer (the control tower for the various race zones) and the Course Representative (the person in charge of the race zone) were responsible for a totally botched Marathon. This was followed by a very long period of hesitation before the decision was taken to switch to the Slalom format and use the Marseille race zone, which was closest to the beach and least windy. The men took over from the women and it was Hong Kong's Ching Yin Cheng who came out on top after 2 early starts, the fault of a poorly established wind in this zone... This was also the moment when Nicolas Goyard's descent into hell began with an 18th place finish after a botched start due to the lack of wind. After a very long wait, the decision was made to switch to the Calanques zone, where a fresh wind of between 13 and 15 knots awaited the competitors.

The Slalom races finally got underway and in the women's race, Emma Wilson scored another 3 victories, leaving one to her rival Sharon Kantor. Italy's Marta Maggetti remained in the lead, while Wednesday saw Hélène Noesmoen have her best day ever, no doubt motivated by her 4th place in the Marathon before it was cancelled. Despite a collision with Poland's Maja Dziarnowska and a damaged foil that she had to change immediately between 2 races, the Frenchwoman remained at the front, focused on her goal.

On the men's side, the 3 races completely overturned the order established until now with the victory of Australian Grae Morris and twice of German Sebastien Koerdel, who had nothing left to lose after a complicated start to the competition. 15th, 14th and 16th, Nicolas Goyard wasn't on the pace, got off to average starts and, logically, tumbled down the overall rankings. The machine that had been perfectly tuned up until now seemed to have broken down. 15th, 12 points behind 10th, the Frenchman could still hope to qualify for the medal race and, who knows, pull off the perfect hold-up on the final day of racing on Friday. On this particular day, Luuc van Opzeeland wasn't celebrating either and relinquished his lead to Morris, followed by Poland's Tarnowski and Israel's Reuveny.

 

With feedback from the beach (and our thanks!) from Valérie Boutet-Massonneau, executive secretary of the iQFOiL class, and Lucas Guiraud, long-time friend of Nicolas Goyard.

 

Source: World Sailing - FFVoile
Photos: World Sailing/Sander van der Borch - World Sailing/Lloyd Images

tags: Jeux Olympiques Paris 2024 iQFOiL Emma Wilson Grae Morris

Articles similaires

En route pour Los Angeles 2028

L’image du jour, c’est la Française Lucie Belbeoch qui lance sa campagne en...

3 questions à Ethan Westera

Sportif de l’une des plus petites délégations, Aruba, cette petite île...

3 questions à Mateus Isaac

Visage bien connu du PWA World Tour, le Brésilien Mateus Isaac a mis sa carrière...
comments powered by Disqus
Gestion de vos données sur le site Windsurfjournal
En poursuivant votre navigation sur ce site, vous acceptez l’utilisation de cookies ou autres traceurs pour vous proposer par exemple, des publicités ciblées adaptées à vos centres d’intérêts ou encore réaliser des statistiques de visites.
En savoir plus fermer