Thrilling sport and a glittering finale: Germany's Olympic sailors made the World Cup stage off Weymouth their arena with strong performances and boosted their self-confidence once again with gold and silver on course for Rio. RS:X surfer Toni Wilhelm has won the first World Cup gold of his career two months before his third Olympic start after 2004 and 2012. "This victory in Rio conditions in the last competition before the Games feels really good," said the 33-year-old from the Black Forest at the venue where he so narrowly missed out on the Olympic bronze medal four years ago. From 8 August, the sports scientist, who lives in Lausanne, wants to fight for Olympic medals once again.
Paul Kohlhoff and Carolina Werner crowned the best sailing week of their career with silver. The young crew from Kiel started the final medal race in second place, sailed to third place and defended their second place on the podium. The only 20-year-old helmsman Paul Kohlhoff and his 22-year-old foresailor Carolina Werner relegated the French Billy Besson and Marie Riou to bronze in the final classification. An achievement that is particularly impressive, as Besson/Riou have won every world championship in the new Olympic mixed catamaran class so far and are considered the absolute top favourites for the Olympic Games. "We now have the confidence to do almost anything," said an overjoyed Caro Werner after the final, "our speed was right here in all wind conditions." In the heat of battle with the greats of the Olympic catamaran discipline, Werner only realised that she had lost one of the lenses of her sunglasses in the final during the subsequent TV interview.
With the silver World Cup medal, the young Kiel team not only achieved their best result since entering the Nacra 17 class under the pressure of elimination and in a top-class fleet, but also thanked their supporters in the best possible way and sent a psychologically important signal to the competition. The KYC crew has now fulfilled all the conditions agreed with the German Sailing Federation for the Olympic start and can hope to be nominated by the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB).
DSV sports director Nadine Stegenwalner, who was on site with DSV head coach David Howlett as an observer of the last exciting elimination regatta, said: "These were very strong performances. As agreed, we will submit an individual application to the DOSB for Paul Kohlhoff and Carolina Werner." The DOSB will decide on the individual applications and announce the nominees in the second week of July at the latest. If the DSV application is approved, the DSV fleet will be competing in seven out of ten disciplines at the Olympics.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
