Image: REUTERS
Instead of three medal races and one medal, Austria's sailors travel home from the summer games in Enoshima with the modest results of tenth, eleventh and seventeenth places. “We knew that the games were going to be difficult. The fact is that all the teams have done below their potential,” said OeSV sports director Matthias Schmid to the APA – Austria Press Agency. You will now let some time pass, then sit down and analyze.
The 49ers Benjamin Bildstein / David Hussl were the only Austrian boat to have made it into the top ten Medal Race in tenth place. Thomas Zajac / Barbara Matz in the Nacra 17 Foiling (11th) and Tanja Frank / Lorena Abicht (17th) in the 49er FX were already out of the race before that. Together, Zajac / Frank won bronze in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, the only medal in the entire ÖOC line-up.
“We will now analyze carefully at home and try to find out what we could, should have done differently,” said Schmid. In contrast to other games, this time you couldn't get any pluses by practicing often and a lot in the Olympic area. Because of Corona, this has not been possible since 2019. But this is very important for sailors from Austria. “We come from the lake. We need longer than the ocean sailors who are used to it all their lives.” The area is to get to know different wind conditions and waves.
Another problem was that there were few major international regattas in preparation. “We missed sailing in strong fields under pressure. We miss that more than the big nations. They drove a regatta every weekend from the youth. It is therefore more difficult for us if nothing happens internationally. Our last big one The event was the EM in October, that was a long time ago. ” Of course, there were also individual reasons, not just related to the respective team. “But also person to person.”
Frank / Abicht, for example, did not get into the rhythm. “They didn't manage to feel the wind and read.” Zajac / Matz would have lost a lot of ground on a light wind day. Bildstein / Hussl sailed “incredibly well” as soon as the start phase was over. “But they got off to a bad start. Starts are always an issue for them, so we tried out strategies. But they delivered at the World Championships and the European Championships,” he said of the World Cup fourth and second placed. But the Olympics might just be something else.
The wind conditions were as expected for a couple of days. “For other days we had relatively little data and experience, so we didn't feel it that way. On the light wind days, where no clear system was discernible and you needed a sure instinct, we got a lot of points,” said Schmid.
It is not clear to all teams how things will go on. “We concentrated on the Games. The days were super exhausting. Everyone is disappointed and has to sleep over it. Analyzing will be a two or three-day project. A sensible debriefing at the Olympics is a tradition. Even with those who might stop. That is feedback to others. “
In Rio 2016 you had four really good teams, all of them had a chance to win a medal. “You can't have that at all games. It goes in waves and waves. We don't have tens of thousands of young sailors and super talents, it's very hard work to bring about one or the other.”
In three years' time, the next Olympic regatta is waiting in front of Marseille as part of the Summer Games in Paris. The world championships in Oman are still on the program this year. A container is sent there from Enoshima.
