Olympics in sight: 100 days to go until the opening ceremony

There are 100 days to go until the opening ceremony of the Games of the XXXII Olympiad, 102 until the first starting shot of the Olympic sailing regatta. On 23 July, the hosts want to ring in the Games of the XXXII Olympiad, on 25 July the Laser and Laser Radial fleets as well as the RS:X surfers will be the first to start off Enoshima. The old and new Olympic water stage in Sagami Bay, where Willy Kuhweide sailed to his legendary gold medal in the Finn dinghy in 1964, will initially belong to them alone. On 27 July, the skiff fleets and Finn sailors will also join the Olympic action, followed on 28 July by the 470 men and women and the mixed crews in the foiling Nacra 17. The medals will be decided between 31 July and 4 August.

The video from 2019 shows the Olympic harbour, which will host 350 sailors from all over the world this summer

The German Sailing Team is sending a small but mighty team to the Olympic regatta venue around an hour and a half away from Tokyo: Philipp Buhl (Sonthofen) is starting his second Olympic Games as world champion. After 14th place in Rio de Janeiro, the reigning world champion wants more this time. In the 49er, the bronze medallists from 2016 are once again among the favourites in the battle for the medals: Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel (Kiel/Berlin), 2019 World Championship silver medallists and 2020 World Championship bronze medallists, will once again be up against New Zealand's America's Cup winners and Olympic champions Peter Burling and Blair Tuke (New Zealand) as well as a group of other strong competitors. Among them are Diego Botín le Chever and Iago López Marra, the training partners of the Germans. In the Nacra 17, Paul Kohlhoff/Alica Stuhlemmer from Kieler Yacht-Club, who are unrivalled nationally and have also made a strong international name for themselves, have qualified. The European champions Tina Lutz/Susann Beucke (Chiemsee/Strande) will be competing in the 49erFX. In the women's 470, Luise Wanser and Anastasiya Winkel (Hamburg/Kiel) want to crown their successful last-minute campaign with a successful Olympic premiere. In the Laser Radial, Svenja Weger, who has got to know and appreciate the Olympic area several times over the past few years, will be in action.

Olympic qualification has become tougher for men

While there were eight German crews and twelve athletes in 2012 and seven crews with a dozen athletes in 2016, only six out of ten Olympic sailing disciplines with a total of ten men and women will be represented at the 2020 Olympic Games in 2021 from a German perspective. Above all, the shrinking Olympic fields for men have ensured that the qualification hurdles for them have become higher. In other words, it has become even harder for male Olympic candidates to qualify for the pinnacle of their sport. For two reasons: On the way to the 50:50 distribution of male and female athletes at the Olympic Games, the men's fields at qualifying regattas are still generally larger than the women's fields on the one hand. On the other hand, there are fewer Olympic starting places for male sailors than for female sailors.

This can be clearly seen in the example of the Laser Standard (men) and Laser Radial (women): in 2016, 46 Laser sailors and 37 Laser Radial sailors competed in the Olympics. This summer, 35 Laser sailors and 44 Laser Radial women will be competing in Enoshima. The numbers show the simple formula for achieving the gender parity that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is striving for: All Olympic men's disciplines have fewer starting places in Japan than in 2016, while all women's disciplines have more. As a result, 155 men in 117 boats, 155 women in 113 boats and 20 mixed duos in the same number of Nacra 17 catamarans will be racing before Enoshima. The hurdles were too high this time for the German 470 men and the Finn Dinghy sailors. German sailing no longer has internationally successful surfers like Toni Wilhelm or Moana Delle. But it does have other hopefuls. DSV Sports Director Nadine Stegenwalner is convinced of this 100 days before the opening of the Olympic Games, despite the highly challenging pandemic times. When asked for a medal tip, she said: "Of course, it's difficult to predict at the moment. But I can say that I'm confident that some disciplines will win medals. That's plural..."