Andy Rice

Covid - 19 meant being at the Olympics this time around was a hugely surreal but ultimately rewarding experience

Working at Tokyo 2020 was one of the strangest experiences out to me as always smiling however her day had gone. When you’ve scored two bullets and then a third on the final outing of the afternoon, only to discover you’ve been disqualified from the last I’ve had, and certainly the strangest race for breaking the start line too of the four Olympic Regattas at soon, it would be easy to focus on the which I’ve reported. If I hadn’t negative. To rue the missed opportunity. been employed by World Sailing Emma never did this, not even when she as a writer, there’s no way I’d have came out of the Medal Race with ‘just’ a got there under my own steam. bronze medal when the gold had been Three consecutive days of PCR well within reach. Asked if she regretted tests (cost approx £400) before we missing out on gold, she reminded were even allowed to get on the everyone there that it’s a privilege for plane, let alone five hours stuck in any sailor to win a medal of any colour. Tokyo airport until I was ‘free’ to Emma was relieved to have broken begin my three days of quarantine her run of fourth places in a number in a hotel room not big enough of major RS:X events over the past to swing a cat o’ nine tails. two years so to come away with a

Not that I’m wanting to sound bronze medal was a source of huge like a whinger. Because once the Olympic Regatta got going, it was ‘STRANGE TO SEE PEOPLE relief and elation. A bronze medal for Marit Bouwmeester on the other hand incredibly exciting to be there amongst all the high and lows of the competition, capturing YOU KNEW BUT UNABLE TO DO ANYTHING MORE was a source of great angst and regret. The defending Olympic Champion from Rio 2016 came to the Laser Radial the emotion of the sailors as they came ashore and did their compulsory walk through the THAN A FIST BUMP BY WAY OF GREETING’ regatta fully expectant of repeating gold, but the Dutchwoman made errors - such as also falling foul of the U flag ‘Mixed Zone’. This is the area at the start - and said she would never were we, the media, get our chance to talk to the athletes forgive herself for those missed opportunities. It’s almost as if soon after they come ashore. Although they’re under no Marit attached no value to the bronze. As winner of a silver compulsion to talk to us, only to pass through the zone. at London 2012, gold at Rio 2016 and now bronze at Tokyo

It’s incredibly frustrating, but understandable, when 2020, I said to her that most people would consider her to sailors refuse to stop and walk briskly past towards the exit. be the ‘three-time Olympic medallist, Marit Bouwmeester’. When everyone’s wearing masks, as we had to do all the time I asked her how many medals she considered she had won. except when eating or drinking, it’s even easier for people “One,” she replied. To Marit, gold is all that matters. to ignore you. In that sense, this was a very impersonal At each of the medallists’ press conferences, when I asked for Games. Strange to see people you knew but unable to do a show of hands from the medallists as to who would be back anything more than a fist bump by way of greeting. in three years’ time for Paris 2024, I had very few hands go up

My observation from standing in Mixed Zones at the in any of the 10 events. This is hardly surprising. It’s a cruel 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020 Games is that the sailors who question to ask the sailors when they’ve only 10 minutes earlier turn up to talk to the media every day, regardless of what been awarded their medals at one Olympics, their faces still kind of day they’ve had, are the most likely to go on to win encrusted with salt from the Pacific Ocean. And already, some medals. There is probably some false logic here, so you can pesky journalist is asking them: ‘So what next?’. But the question take the observation with a pinch of salt, but my experience elicits interesting responses. And in the case of the Laser Radial has been that the sailors who talk to the media even when medallists, neither the new Olympic Champion Anne-Marie they’ve had a terrible day - rather than making a beeline Rindom or the silver medalist Josefin Olsson would commit for the exit - have developed a level of control over their ANDY RICE to Paris there and then. Fair enough, only to be expected. emotions that sets them apart from most their competitors. As a sailing journalist But my greatest surprise was to see Marit’s hand go up

The Brits were generally very good at showing up for media and TV commentator Andy has unparalleled straight away. She wants that ‘second’ medal, another gold to interviews, which of course is much easier when you’re doing knowledge of the go with the ‘only’ medal she has won, the gold from Rio 2016. well! But every sailor suffered setbacks during the competition dinghy sailing scene, from grassroots to Talk about unstinting commitment. In that moment Marit reat Enoshima, and windsurfer Emma Wilson was one that stood Olympic level established herself as the favourite to win gold in Paris 2024.