339 sailors and 239 boats from 52 nations will start the last big dress rehearsal for the 2016 Olympic regatta on Saturday. Twelve German sailors will be competing in seven disciplines before Rio de Janeiro. Six coaches will be looking after the athletes on the water, including the new head coach David Howlett, who will also be coaching the young Nacra 17 crew Paul Kohlhoff and Carolina Werner on the water. A look back at the last Olympic regatta in 2012 reveals just how significant a podium finish at the test regatta in the year before the Olympic Games can be: In the last Olympic cycle, 18 out of 30 medallists at the test regatta also won an Olympic medal a year later - that's 60 per cent.
Laser vice world champion Philipp Buhl is accordingly highly motivated going into the series from 15 to 22 August. The man from Sonthofen said: "I'm aiming for a medal. A test is only a good test if you take it exactly like the Games. And a medal would be an extremely important confidence booster for next year, which I would love to take with me." The fields at the test regatta are already as small as at the Olympic Games. The largest fleet is made up of the laser sailors with 46 starters. The athletes in the 470 Women's, 49er, 49er FX and Nacra 17 disciplines have to cope with the smallest fields, where only 20 boats are permitted in each discipline.
Everyone will be fighting to make their mark on the competition one year before the world's biggest sporting event. "As only the best in the world are competing here, we are highly motivated to fight at the front," says 49er foresailor Susann Beucke, "of course a good result is important to us. European 470 champion Ferdi Gerz has another goal: "We want to gain as much knowledge as possible about the area with the entire German team." RS:X surfer Toni Wilhelm is also optimistic about his participation: "I've trained very well and hard. I feel good and hope that I can deliver a great performance here."
The Aquece Rio International Sailing Regatta - the official name of the test regatta - also serves observers to assess the current situation in the controversial Olympic area. There are still many complaints about the water quality and the rubbish that frequently drifts along the current edges in the bay, clouding the paradisiacal backdrop beneath the Sugar Loaf Mountain and Christo statue. The organisers will be putting six race courses into operation during this regatta week. Three of them are outside Guanabara Bay in cleaner waters with often impressive two to three metre high Atlantic waves, three are close to the coast. The outer courses are called Pai, Copacabana and Niteroi, while the inner courses are sailed in hard-to-read currents on Pao de Açucar, Ponte and Escuele Naval. The classes rotate.
"The atmosphere in the team is great, everyone is in a good mood," reports team leader Nadine Stegenwalner from Rio de Janeiro. Nacra 17 headsailer Carolina Werner says: "Rio is absolutely amazing. Great vibe here in the city. We had very effective training days and are in top shape!" The races are scheduled to start daily from 1 pm local time (in Germany it is already 6 pm). Because it gets dark in Rio de Janeiro at around 5.30 pm, there is little time for long delays in poor sailing conditions.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
