The medal festival of the German Olympic sailors: "You can't plan something like this, you can only dream"

It has been 21 years since a German national sailing team won three medals at the Olympic Games. The team returned from Sydney 2000 with two silver and one bronze. Now the jubilant balance sheet is very similar. And it is good for the German Sailing Team after a long dry spell. When the three happy German medal-winning crews travelled from Enoshima to Tokyo on the ZDF shuttle in the evening, the mood was exuberant. Even more so in the studio itself. There was a concentrated and, according to the ZDF colleagues, exceptionally cheerful, likeable and telegenic load of sailing sport for the Olympic coverage on public television.

Tina Lutz and Susann Beucke were the first to cause early morning excitement among the fans at home on this historic Tuesday. They had started their final in third place overall. A medal was still within reach and possible for them in all colours - including Olympic victory, but also a finish outside the medal ranks. The Bavarian-North German crew completed the task under the eyes of the world public with a courageous start and even managed to move up one place to silver, because the Dutch women Annemiek Bekkering and Annette Duetz, who had started the medal race as front runners, were unfortunate and were left behind by the irresistible Brazilians Martine Grael/Kahena Kunze and also by the nervously strong German women. This was the order in which the three best women's crews stood on the podium that evening. Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze celebrated their second Olympic victory in a row, which they secured under the watchful eye of dad and coach Torben Grael. With their daughter's second gold, father Torben (2 x gold, 1 x silver, 2 x bronze), daughter Martine Grael (2 x gold) and uncle Lars Grael (2 x bronze) now have nine Olympic medals between them: a fabulous Olympic family record! However, when asked whether she would like to surpass her father in the number of medals in the future, Grael said that this was not her goal. She wants to be successful in her own way.

Tina Lutz and Susann Beucke also celebrated the greatest success of their careers in their own way. The duo from the Chiemsee Yacht Club and the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein have been sailing together for 14 years and have experienced all the highs and lows of a competitive sporting career. "We cried together and rose again together," says Tina Lutz. The two-time European champions' dream of reaching the top was not shattered by two missed Olympic qualifiers. "We knew right from our first regatta that we were the team that could do it together," said Susann Beucke on her happiest day as a competitive athlete. At home in Strande, mum Ellen Beucke had been cheering them on and said: "I am happy that they have fulfilled their dream and incredibly proud." Germany's best female skiff sailors have now turned the eternal silver lining on the horizon into tangible medals around their necks. These joined an Olympic gold chain with the five rings on it, which brought the women the luck they had hoped for that day. Just like the golden ship on another chain that Susann Beucke received from her grandfather.

On "Giants' Day", as Erik Heil called it, the German sailors in the Olympic harbour off Enoshima couldn't stop celebrating. They hugged, danced and threw each other into the water. Within four hours, the German fleet won three medals in the final races on Tuesday in Sagami Bay, where Willy Kuhweide became a sailing legend when he won gold in 1964. Tina Lutz and Susann Beucke were followed by Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel in the 49er. They had the most difficult task to solve on the day, because unlike their team-mates, they did not start their medal race in third place, but "only" in fourth - and with a significant gap of ten points to the bronze medallist. The veterans solved their task with their well-known good speed and a lot of bite. Their final duel with the Brits Dylan Fletcher and Stuart Bithell was thrilling. The crew from the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein lost this 30 centimetres behind at the finish line, indirectly deciding the battle for Olympic victory in favour of the British and against the New Zealand top favourites Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, who had to be satisfied with their second silver medal after 2012, but weren't really. The America's Cup dominators were unable to repeat their 2016 Olympic victory.

Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel's own gala performance and second place in the final were enough to put them on the Olympic podium because their highly esteemed and highly rated Spanish training partners Diego Botin Le Chever and Iago Lopez Marra failed in the decisive run of all things. Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel once again completed their bronze somersault, still fondly remembered from Rio de Janeiro - this time into the waters of Sagami Bay. The honest and often critical coach Marc Pickel, who could not quite hide his disappointment about his crew's starting position before the medal race, had this to say: "Erik and Thomas really delivered today. I'm very proud of them both." Thomas Plößel explained that "this medal from Enoshima is much more valuable to him than the one from Rio". Which also has to do with the fact that it was even harder to win. After the thrilling final, Erik Heil found words of comfort for his Spanish friends who finished fourth: "They were the best all last year. We benefited from each other and I'm sad that they didn't win a medal. They deserved it."

Both the German skiff men and Tina Lutz and Susann Beucke have left it open for the time being as to whether they will continue or end their careers. Both want to make a decision in the coming months. The situation is completely different for Paul Kohlhoff and Alica Stuhlemmer. The youngest crew in the German Sailing Team's Olympic line-up and the second youngest in the fleet are planning at least two more Olympic campaigns. The team from the Kieler Yacht-Club competed on an equal footing with the world's best during this Olympic week. Right from the start, the proud team from Kiel did this in a confident, focussed and goal-oriented manner. They never wavered, positioned themselves in the top three after the first day and remained there until the end of the medal race. Even the wild attacks by the Australian silver medallists from 2016 could not change this. Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin provoked a minor collision with the Germans in the final pre-start phase, who immediately recovered from their mistake with a penalty curl and initially had to roll up the field from behind to the horror of the observers. But a few strategically good shots later, Kohlhoff/Stuhlemmer had worked their way back up to eighth place, which was enough for a well-deserved bronze medal in the final standings, as the Australians were unable to finish higher than ninth. "You can't plan something like this, you can only dream," said Paul Kohlhoff in the evening after the medal ceremony. The deserved Olympic champions were the outstanding Italians Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti ahead of Great Britain's John Gimson and Anna Burnet.

The Finn Dinghy sailors bid farewell to the Olympics this Tuesday with their last final. Great Britain's Giles Scott narrowly saved his second consecutive Olympic victory with fourth place in the medal race. Zsombor Berecz from Hungary was rewarded for his victory in the final with silver, and the Spaniard Joan Cardona Mendez relegated the Dutchman, who had been coming on strong recently, to fourth place. Where Willy Kuhweide once won gold, the Finn Dinghy circle has now come full circle. In the future of Olympic sailing, the one-man dinghy for "heavy boys" no longer has a future for the time being.

Click here to go directly to the Olympic Results Centre (please click!)