The comeback day of the German medallists in Enoshima: "It was important to give these answers today"

After his black Tuesday at the Olympic regatta off Enoshima, Philipp Buhl has catapulted himself back into the top group of the best Laser sailors at the right time. Exhausted but happy, he trudged through the harbour apron late on Thursday afternoon. The Laser World Champion from Sonthofen found the right answers to the challenges of his course in two 50 physically and mentally demanding minutes in winds of initially 12 and later 17 to 18 knots. "I didn't take it easy on myself," said the 31-year-old in an interview in the Olympic harbour after the races. He felt "broken and good", said the helmsman, for whom so much was at stake today.

Buhl withstood the enormous pressure on the precipice of his Olympic dreams and worked his way back up from an uncomfortable 13th place to seventh with third and fourth place. From there, the prospect of reaching the medal race two races before the final is now a brighter one. At the same time, the main boatman of the German Armed Forces knows that he still has to achieve two good results if he wants to reach for the medal he is hoping for. Races nine and ten of the 35-boat Laser fleet will take place on Friday on the Enoshima course, which is very close to the coast. The five days of sailing at the Olympic regatta so far have shown that it can be volatile there. Buhl knows: "It could be a tough race. You have to have a bit of luck."

Australia's Matt Wearn initially established himself at the top of the Laser field on Thursday with two wins on the day. "I would have liked to have had that too," Buhl said, "my respect for Matt's performance." It is Matt Wearn who snatched the world championship title from under Buhl's nose in his home country of Australia in February 2020.

For Buhl, the triumph meant the fulfilment of one of his two major goals and the first German World Championship victory in an Olympic sailing discipline after a 20-year dry spell. For Matt Wearn, who hails from the sailing city of Perth, the runner-up World Championship title after a strongly contested series was a slight disappointment, which should now give him an extra dose of motivation for the Olympics. Nevertheless, the 25-year-old from Down Under remains cautious: "I've got 28 points on the list. So I'm by no means certain of a medal at this point." In other words, a second high result in one of the last two races before the double scoring final could hit the Australian hard. Like almost every top Laser competitor who will be fighting for a place in the medal race for the ten best helmsmen on Friday.

These include Pavlos Kontides, currently in second place in his fourth Olympic appearance, who won silver in Weymouth in 2012, the first medal for a Cypriot athlete in Olympic history. Buhl's training partner Hermann Tomasgaard from Norway, in third place, has just as good a chance of making the final and winning a medal as Brazil's Robert Scheidt. The double Olympic champion is aiming for his sixth medal in his seventh Olympic appearance. Also ahead of Buhl are Croatia's Tonci Stipanovič, fourth at the 2012 Olympics and silver medallist in 2016, and France's Jean-Baptiste Bernaz.

Everything is set for furious final races in the main round and the final of the top ten Laser experts on 1 August. Buhl's coach Alex Schlonski says: "Philipp has to sail well and bravely tomorrow, not hammer blindly into the corners and also have a bit of luck. If he can stay under ten points tomorrow like he did today, then he can still earn the medal."

"Our speed was powerful today"

Like Buhl, on Thursday his sailing friend Erik Heil and his coxswain Thomas Plößel from the North German Regatta Club also managed to make up for the sobering previous day. Germany's 49er gallantry figures had left too many feathers in their wake on Wednesday with 13th, 5th and 14th places - they lacked speed in the stronger winds. "We weren't able to call up our full performance potential," said Marc Pickel, explaining the adversity.

Because the coronavirus-related short preparation time in Japan only offered light wind conditions, the Germans lacked important experience for setting up their boat in stronger winds like on Wednesday. "We didn't have a chance to test the equipment in conditions like yesterday with 14 to 18 knots, we couldn't prepare it well enough. It caught us a bit on the back foot and didn't feel good because these are actually perfect conditions. The race is 90 per cent about speed because the wind hardly turns. If you don't have the speed, you pay for it," explains Pickel in an interview with YACHT online in Enoshima.

The team wouldn't be as successful as it was with World Championship silver in 2019 and World Championship bronze in 2020 if it wasn't able to react at lightning speed. "You have to be able to rebuild quickly," says Marc Pickel, "Erik and Thomas did a good job today. It was important to give this response on the water today." Helmsman Erik Heil summarised the answer in words late in the afternoon after finishing second and third: "Our speed was powerful today." With the conviction that they are now optimally equipped for all conditions, the German 49er aces, who are once again on fire, will start the second half of their series on Friday. After six races, they are led by the Brits Dylan Fletcher and Stuart Bithell. The top favourites Peter Burling and Blair Tuke are in fourth place after America's Cup high-flyer Peter Burling slipped off the boat on Thursday and the Kiwis returned to the harbour with mixed results of tenth and first place.

In addition to Buhl and Heil/Plößel, the other German crews also impressed on the fifth day of the regatta in Sagami Bay. The 470 sailors Luise Wanser and Anastasiya Winkel had obviously successfully banished the sadness of their double disqualification from the two opening races the day before from their minds - or perhaps that was precisely why they were so alert and eager to attack. The crew from the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein, who had to start from the back of the field in 19th place with the penalty of two 22-point penalties, worked their way up to twelfth place with fifth and fourth place.

"You had to be clever and sail smart today," said helmswoman Luise Wanser, happy about the continuation of the impressive results on the water. And combative: "If we gave 100 per cent yesterday, then it was 120 per cent today." The German Sailing Team's request to reopen the proceedings, at the end of which the North German women had been disqualified from races one and two on Wednesday evening due to trapeze trousers weighing 200 grams too much, was rejected by the jury on Thursday. As a result, the women from Hamburg lost their ninth and fifth places from the first two races. The second jury spent an hour and a half discussing the Germans' application for reinstatement on Thursday evening. In the end, the two times 22 points remained and will accompany Luise Wanser and Anastasiya Winkel through to the final. It is not impossible that the ambitious sailors from the German Sailing Team will be able to turn the severe punishment, which penalised an annoying mistake by the team too harshly, into a portion of extra motivation in the coming days.

The Kiel catamaran sailors Paul Kohlhoff and Alica Stuhlemmer once again thrilled their observers and fans on Thursday. The KYC crew continued their winning streak from the previous day with two third places, before capsizing in the third race of the day and even showing what they are made of in the situation: the mixed duo quickly righted the Nacra 17 in a flash within half a minute and saved eleventh place at the finish and a formidable third place in the intermediate classification. Kohlhoff cited his team as the basis for the promising interim result: "Together with our coach Marcus Lynch, we are a solid team of three in which everything is discussed and agreed." The helmsman had this to say about his only 21-year-old foresailor on his second Olympic outing: "I wouldn't sail Nacra 17 with anyone else but Alica."

Laser Radial helmswoman Svenja Weger kept her chance of a medal race in the top ten alive on day five with eighth and twelfth place. After eight races, the Kiel native is now 13th in the overall standings and said: "Those were solid results today. I can really attack again tomorrow."

The sixth day of the Olympic regatta promises plenty of excitement. In the Laser fleets, decisions will be made on who will make it into the medal races for the top ten coxswains. The finals will be held after another rest day on 1 August for the ten best men and women. The skiff athletes are just as much in demand as the 470 field, while the Nacra 17 fleet is taking a break. Sailing team boss Stegenwalner found the ideal closing words for the German sailors' brilliant day in the heat battle of Enoshima: "Days like this are what you want as a German Sailing Team. I am very happy for our sailors, who had an extremely successful day. We hope and trust that our crews can continue like this on Friday."