Olympic sailing: Let the games begin!

Three days before the first starting signal on Monday, the sailors of the national team are ready for the Olympic regatta. All five women and seven men, as well as their coaches, are eagerly awaiting today's opening ceremony. "It's going to be awesome," said 49er helmsman Erik Heil. Table tennis player Timo Boll will carry the German flag into the Maracana Stadium, which is completely sold out with almost 80,000 seats and is expecting thousands of athletes to march in the evening (ARD will broadcast the spectacle from 11.40 pm).

Also taking part are RS:X surfer Toni Wilhelm (Dogern), Laser vice world champion Philipp Buhl (Sonthofen), the 49er crew Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel (Berlin), the 49erFX sailors Vicky Jurczok and Anika Lorenz (Berlin), the 470 team Ferdi Gerz and Oliver Szymanski (Munich/Berlin), the VSaW crew Annika Bochmann/Marlene Steinherr and the Kiel Nacra 17 sailors Paul Kohlhoff and Carolina Werner.

The athletes' final days in Rio were filled with moving into the Olympic Village, preparing the equipment and lots of theoretical homework. Like their coaches, the German sailors live in the Olympic Village, which consists of 31 high-rise buildings and is located in the Barra district. The Olympic home of the German athletes is building 22, which also houses the Belgians and Luxembourgers. The sailors' flats are located on the 17th floor, where they live together in two spartanly furnished six-bed flats like in shared flats. Over the next two weeks, the Olympic Village will be home to more than 10,000 athletes as well as coaches, support staff and doctors from more than 200 nations. There are 3604 flats. Around 13,000 employees and volunteers will look after the guests here. 618 medals will be contested in the sports venues.

The sailing regatta begins on Monday (8 August). To kick things off, RS:X surfer Toni Wilhelm and Laser ace Philipp Buhl will be competing in their first two races. The German 470 crews and the Nacra 17 sailors will start the Olympic regatta on 10 August. The first starting shots for the skiff teams will be fired on 12 August. The first medal races begin on 14 August. The Olympic regatta ends on 18 August, unless 19 August has to be used as a reserve day.

Sailing on television

Since 3 August, ARD and ZDF have been broadcasting the most comprehensive TV programme ever for the Olympic Games. Sailing is also benefiting from this. Some races with German participation can be followed online in one of the up to six live streams of the public broadcasters. If the final medal races are also about medals for German sailors, the decisions could even be broadcast live (from 6pm or 7pm - see the daily programmes of ARD and ZDF) in the main programme. For the first time, there will also be more than 100 hours of 360-degree live streams and highlight videos with an all-round view. At breakfast, the best moments will be shown again in highlight programmes.

Click here for the timetable for Broadcasts from sailing in the live stream (Attention: times may change, please note current programme information from ARD/ZDF). Click here for the complete schedule of the ARD and here to the transmissions from ZDF.