Olympia: Steinlein convinces in sixth place, Kohlhoff stunt after capsize and breakage

Things did not go according to plan for Paul Kohlhoff and Alica Stuhlemmer at the very first start of the Nacra 17 fleet, which entered Olympic action on Saturday. The Olympic bronze medallists from Enoshima came too close to the Swedes Emil Jarudd and Marina Arndt. "A foul straight away, typically me, that's exactly what we didn't want to do. It was touch and go, I would have said we could have carried on, but to be on the safe side we took the curl," commented Paul Kohlhoff on the opening situation. However, his team then caught up well and pushed back into the top ten.

Olympic opener with capsize and breakage

Then the next mishap: a wind hole was followed by a hard gust of more than 20 knots. The GER crew was caught flat-footed while chasing forward and capsized. "These Mistral conditions are actually unpalatable. It was so choppy at times. There's a gust of over 20 knots and the next moment you're swimming upwind in the water," says Paul Kohlhoff.

The tiller boom breaks in the process. When the boat is upright again and Kohlhoff/Stuhlemmer can accelerate again, the helmsman has a problem and has to perform a stunt. Paul Kohlhoff describes the challenge: "I was hanging on the second cross like a star boat foresailor. So I hooked in, with my bum on deck, over the edge, but hooked into the trapeze. And with my hand still on the steering rod. But we still came 18th!"

The crew from the Kieler Yacht-Club were then able to replace the broken tiller boom with a new one and improved significantly in the following two races, finishing 7th and 3rd. This initially led them to seventh place. The brutal thing about their outdoor course today was the chaotic wave, Paul Kohlhoff continued. "On the one hand, there was the really big Atlantic swell from the left with long, big and high waves. And then there was a chop on top due to the wind. The wave came from all directions and in all different types."

The day got off to a bumpy start" (Alica Stuhlemmer)

Paul Kohlhoff went on to say: "A flying boat like this doesn't fly stable in every wave. You can hardly sail a regatta. You fight with this boat the whole time. The boat drives you. In the end, we were halfway back in the game. The strike from the first race hurts a bit because it was ten points given away. But we'll get them back at some point. If not, you have to take your hat off to the others." The crews in the fleet of foiling catamarans can also only cancel out one result in their series.

Theresa Steinlein confident, but unlucky

Alica Stuhlemmer looked back on the start: "We started the day in a way that we hadn't actually planned. And then we got up on our noses at the windward mark." The foresailor described Kohlhoff's stunt "like in a laser": "So Paul hangs. Then, of course, everything doesn't go so fast, but we tried to fight for every point because the series is still long. We gradually got more into it today, but it wasn't easy."

Theresa Steinlein can also subscribe to this sentence. She did her windsurfing quarter-final as brilliantly as if it had been easy: Lightning start, lead, strong speed, consistently in the top two, everything under control. But in the end it didn't work out that way. The top athlete from the NRV Olympic Team tells us how she experienced the quarter-final and the surprisingly shattered dream of reaching the semi-finals, in which a wind shift allowed the surfers from Peru and China, who had previously been trailing behind, to win the race out of nowhere on the other side of the course:

I had a mega good start, was mega fast" (Theresa Steinlein)

"I led the field from the start and then went upwind in second place after the gate. Five girls were chasing me. It's been over the right-hand side here for three months now. That's why I endeavoured to get to the right-hand side as quickly as possible today. In those two minutes, however, it went over to the left side. The last two in the field took the left-hand side because they didn't want to be last. And they landed the lucky punch. Sometimes luck plays a part. That happened to the last two today, unfortunately not to me. I have to accept that. That's just sailing. I would make the same decisions again."

The balanced words came from the mouth of the 22-year-old youngest member of the team, who was able to overcome her bitter disappointment at coming so close and yet so unfortunately missing out on a semi-final place by looking at what she had achieved at the Olympics: "If someone had told me when I started windsurfing that I would come sixth at the Olympics four years later, I would have taken it straight away."

"Resi" Steinlein has her sights set on the 2028 Olympics

The up-and-coming iQFoil athlete bade farewell to her Olympic première in style and has her sights set on continuing her career. In the beach arena in front of the pitlanes of the finalists, Theresa "Resi" Steinlein said: "If everything stays the same as in the last few years, then I'll definitely continue. I have the best setup with my coach Daniel Slijk. And we get to train in a mega-cool place on Lake Garda, where we can get lots of water hours. Plus the cool DSV support - together that's the best thing you can have."

Gold, silver and bronze went to Marta Maggetti (Italy), Sahron Kantor (Israel) and Emma Wilson (Great Britain) in the women's windsurfing event. The latter was the beaten favourite of the day. Emma Wilson had been leading the Olympic main round for six days when, shortly before the start of the final series, a coach left a piece of equipment in her box in the pit lane of the finalists. Wilson was suddenly confronted with a protest from the Technical Committee.

The protest ended mildly with a penalty of 0.5 points and no influence on the result. However, it is unlikely to have contributed to Emma Wilson's calm before the hoped-for summit storm. Due to this and the toughness of the Olympic windsurfing format, in which only a knockout final decides the medals, many felt for the Brit, who was unable to win her hoped-for gold. Tom Reuveny (Israel) raced to Olympic victory in the iQFoil windsurfing event. Silver and bronze went to Grae Morris (Australia) and Luuc van Opzeeland (Netherlands).

The bay of Marseille as an obstacle course

Simon Diesch and Anna Markfort joined the long line of sailors and windsurfers who had to contend with the biggest pressure differences on the courses that day. "I'll take the liberty of saying that we didn't quite understand the conditions today either," admitted helmsman Simon Diesch (Württembergischer Yacht-Club) candidly.

With foresailor Anna Markfort (Verein Seglerhaus am Wannsee/Joersfelder Segel-Club), Simon Diesch had made a strong start to the Olympic premiere of the 470 mixed crews the day before in third place overall. On day two, the duo had to make up ground and found themselves in seventh place in the evening after finishing 9th and 10th.

Anna Markfort described what her crew had to deal with on the water: "It was foreseeable that the high temperatures currently prevailing here would do something to the wind over land. And that's what happened. The wind first had to come over an island before it arrived here in the bay. You could feel that on the water. It was very, very choppy. There were some strong gusts, but also strong holes. The turns were so fast that you could hardly see. No rhythm that we could recognise at least."

The wind didn't realise that it should have turned to the left" (Simon Diesch)

Simon Diesch added with a smile: "We found ourselves at the end of the left-hand field at some point and said that the wind would have to turn left at some point, based on the numbers. Hopefully the wind knows it too. And, no, the wind didn't know that it should have turned left." In the evening, Simon Diesch reported that his crew still had an application for compensation pending. Simon Diesch said: "We still have a redress in because we had a leeward break and we are convinced that they wrote us down too far back."

Philipp Buhl with his back to the wall

Like their team-mates, Ilca 7 helmsman Philipp Buhl (Segelclub Alpsee-Immenstadt/Norddeutscher Regatta Verein) and Ilca 6 helmswoman Julia Büsselberg also had to contend with the diffuse conditions. The 34-year-old from Allgäu dropped back to 14th place, finishing 26th and 11th. After his return to the harbour, Philipp Buhl said: "It really hurts when things don't go at all in the conditions that you are actually looking forward to and that you are particularly good at. I didn't know whether to cry or laugh." According to Buhl, his coach Alex Schlonski "did his best to get him back on his feet" between races. He has four more races left in his third Olympic attempt to advance as far as possible.

Buhl's own view of the future prospects: "The medal isn't quite away yet, but it's pretty far away." Julia Büsselberg dropped back to 20th place on Saturday with 27th, 24th and 27th. "I don't know what caused it. I didn't feel terribly slow on the cross. I definitely wasn't able to utilise my strength of being fast on the downwind. I was really slow there. And then I couldn't quite figure out what the wind was doing today. It wasn't right for us to do the spins in the middle today." Julia Büsselberg's plan for the evening: "Debriefing, with a film on the bike, relax and take it easy again."

Click here for the results of the Olympic regatta.