Sailing Olympics, day three: blues in lights and shadows (and black jinx!)

Third day of lights and shadows for the blue athletes at the Paris 2024 Olympics (Marseille for sailing): nice wind (southeast 10 to 18 knots), lots of ups and downs.

Sailing Olympics – Azzurri in lights and shadows

The good performances of Marta Maggetti and (except for two withdrawals due to boom breakage) Niccolò Renna in the iQFOiL sailboards was countered by the “slip” of Jana Germani and Giorgia Bertuzzi in the 49er FX (women’s skiff) who, after a more than good second day, complete with a trial win, racked up a series of very unfortunate (never was the term more apt!) seventeenth places, three. But let’s proceed in order.

Women’s sailboard iQFOiL – Marta Maggetti third

On women’s flying windsurfing Marta Maggetti proved, again today, that she is willing and able to fight at the top. The Sardinian athlete in the five trials held characterized by intense wind recorded partials of 4-11-4-3, discarding a 21st place in race 4.
After seven total trials, she finds herself in third place behind the impregnable (for now) Britain’s Emma Wilson (1-2-1-2-1-1) and Israel’s Sharon Kantor (6-10-1-3-4).
She has to watch her back against Peru’s Maria Belen Bazo German and France’s Helene Noesmoen. Marta Maggetti is always struggling at the top in the iQFOiL sailing boards[/] Tomorrow it’s back on the water, anything can still happen.
Not least because in the iQFOiL, as we explain at the bottom (in the section on how the regattas work), athletes who finish up to tenth in the qualifying phase can still go on to win gold.
But second and third would skip the mangy playoffs.
So come on Marta!

Men’s sailboard iQFOiL – Renna is there, but what a bummer

Don’t be fooled by the overall ranking, which sees him only sixth after he started yesterday with an excellent second place in the opening round.
Nicolo Renna is there, all right, but he has been hit by some black luck. In today’s first race he breaks the boom attachment and has to retire.
Time is short between trials and the blue team fails to repair the part before the next race: another DNF.

Then, with the makings of a champion, as soon as everything falls back into place he places a fourth, a second and a fifth (the latter coming up from 16th place!).
Nicolo, from Lake Garda, is one of the great Olympic medal hopes and he is proving it to us.
Tomorrow he is back in the water, ranking matters relatively, see what was said for the women’s board.
But it is better to be in front! Besides, let’s face it: better a broken boom today than in the finals or semifinals! In any case, Renna made a protest to the organizing committee (which provides boards and materials): if he is granted “repair” instead of DNFs he will be given two scores that are the average of the scores so far.
That would be a big leap forward in the rankings, we’ll see. The ranking for now is led by Dutchman Luuc Van Opzeeland ahead of Poland’s Pawel Tarnowski.

49er FX – What a bad day for Jana and Giorgia!

There are bad days.
And if you have bad luck, those bad days coincide with an Olympic day.

To sum up, tomorrow for day 4 of sailing Olympics regattas the men’s and women’s iQFOiL, 49er, 49er FX are on the water.

How to follow the sailing Olympics live

You can follow the Sailing Olympics “live” if you have a subscription to Discovery Plus: RAI and other pay channels will broadcast any medal races if there are real medal chances.
Tofind out everything about the schedule, we recommend you check the official World Sailing schedule while to be updated on the results in real time at this link all the rankings. There is also a dedicated page on the Sport Sailing website, Where to follow live race tracking.

• Azzurri at the Olympics: who are the Italians in the hunt for medals
• Everything you need to know about the Olympic classes competing in Marseille

Olympics, how regattas work

Depending on the classes competing(everything you need to know about the classes here), athletes competing in the Marseille Olympics must race for 4, 5 or 6 days.
Each regatta lasts between 15 and 50 minutes depending on the type of boat. In the case of dinghies, skiffs and catamarans (470, ILCA, Nacra 17, 49er and 49er FX) athletes are awarded points equal to their placing in their respective races.
The first is awarded one point, the second two points, and so on.
At the end of the first 4-5 days of racing, the games are “almost done.”
The top 10 ranked crews participate in the very final, called the Medal Race.
Here the rules change, because the points won are worth double: the first gets 2 points, the second 4, and so on.
If you get to the Medal Race with the “short” ranking, this last round is decisive.
In the end, the podium is composed of the athletes/crew with the lowest total number of points. The racing format is different for iQFOil boards and Formula Kite.
In the boards, there are four days of competition and the spots will be different from day to day.
Athletes must alternate between conventional courses, slalom and endurance trials.
In the latter, the points won count double.
The final day is decisive and very intense.
The quarterfinals are reserved for athletes so far ranked from fourth to tenth.
The top two from this “playoff” are selected for the semifinals, which are played in a four-way tie, along with the second and third overall.
The very final is between the top two finishers of the semifinal and the leader of the overall ranking.
The podium is already known before going into the water, only the color of each athlete’s medal to be determined. On the Kites, on the other hand, after four days of racing, the top 10 qualify for the Medal Race.
From then on, only the third through 10th place finishers race in the first phase of the Medal.
The top two from this phase then join the first and second overall for the final four.
In the final, each individual race win is worth one point.
The first to reach 3 points wins the gold medal. E.R.