The whole world is talking about Olympic sailing. Even in Germany. Many people in this country have worked long and hard to achieve this. Not least the Audi Sailing Team Germany and its athletes, who have so often impressed with their clean sport on their "Road to Rio" in the past year. Unfortunately, the fact that they are now in the spotlight every day, giving interviews all the time and have achieved a level of fame rarely seen before is not due to the successes they have already achieved and are still hoping for.
A contaminated Olympic site, a nasty little mosquito called Zika with frightening effects, doping scandals, the IOC's questionable reaction to Russian state doping and a torn Olympic city in recession have ensured that sport has so far been relegated to a minor role at the Olympics. This is a slap in the face for all athletes and especially the sailors who are living their dream within the rules. It is not fair that they have been turned into pawns on a fluid playing field in the heavily criticised Olympic system, which does not even come close to meeting modest quality standards and lags far behind the IOC's highest demands on its Olympians in the areas of public relations and sponsorship.
There are journalists who have returned their accreditation for all these reasons and do not want to report on the Olympics in this way. They deserve respect for that. We at YACHT have decided otherwise and will be there to report on one of the most beautiful Olympic sports in the world and those who practise it. Water quality was and remains an issue that we will continue to monitor closely. As will IOC decisions on doping and the conditions in Rio de Janeiro. But we also want to report on the sailors who are competing in Rio and have invested so much in it. With Heiko Kröger, even the harshest critic among Germany's sailors will be competing at the Paralympics. He will keep his mouth shut as much as possible on the water. On land, he will continue to keep his mouth shut. Neither will we.
Olympic sailing is traditionally, and for good reason, one of those highly complex experiential sports in which doping makes little or no sense. This is why there have been no sailing doping offenders convicted at the Olympics in recent decades. Only in the America's Cup in 2007 was a New Zealand sailor caught who was found to have taken cocaine. He denied having taken the drug himself, but was banned.
Philipp Buhl's coach Thomas Piesker explains the reasons for this: "As a rule, you can't automatically sail better in sailing by having a stronger physique. The big disadvantage of many doping substances are the side effects. These in turn often reduce your ability to concentrate - especially if they are supposed to make you stronger: you can't maintain your concentration for more than two hours. But this is crucial in sailing. It's all about precision and fine coordination. There is no product that I know of that would cover the whole spectrum. As a sailor, you would have to accept significant disadvantages for the advantages of doping. Sailors would rather harm themselves." Piesker also knows that doping can no longer be ruled out 100 per cent, even in sailing, but says: "Sailing and surfing represent a certain lifestyle in which doping is prohibited by itself. There is not enough money involved, but a lot of passion. I can put my hand in the fire for our sailors that no one here is knowingly doping to gain an advantage." Three-time Olympic champion Jochen Schümann also says: "Our sport is very complex. Physique is important, but other factors such as strategy and tactics are more important. Doping would hardly have any influence on performance and therefore makes no sense. The risk is not worth it. The majority of sailors are probably too clever for that."
It is regrettable that there is currently a heated debate about whether the Russian 470 helmsman Pavel Sozykin should be allowed to compete, as his participation has now been confirmed by the IOC at short notice. He was the only sailor to be named in the so-called McLaren Report of the World Anti Doping Agency (Wada). The circumstances surrounding this are complex and have not been publicised in a comprehensible manner: Sozykin is said to have once tested positive for an unspecified substance, the use of which is prohibited within competition periods but permitted outside of regattas. In this case, one could also come up with the idea that party drugs were involved... Nonetheless, the IOC's lurching course in dealing with the Russian doping scandal has shaken the confidence of many in the effective handling of the issue.
YACHT will be reporting from Rio despite everything and precisely because of everything, because we think it is important to be there and get to the bottom of things. We are also reporting because the national sailing team is a powerful, likeable and clean group of athletes who have earned the interest of their fans with a lot of hard work and dedication. You can get to know the sailors in our portraits from the past few days. From Monday, they want to attract attention with their performance at the Olympic regatta. The fact that they have to do this in a visually beautiful, but in terms of content extremely dubious area is not something they have chosen for themselves.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
