Tokyo2020 - Some historic images from Enoshima
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com/nz 1 Sep 14:47 NZST
1 September 2021
Blanca Manchon (ESP) - Womens RS:X - Tokyo2020 - Day 1 - July, 25 - Enoshima, Japan. © Richard Gladwell - Sail-World.com / Photosport
For those still keen for an Olympic sailing fix, here's some new images from Sail-World's photo library from Tokyo2020, now we're off working from laptops and back on big high-res screens.
They are not all about the Olympic medalists but also those who were off the medal podium, including Blanca Manchon (ESP) who first competed in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, won the 2010 RS:X Worlds, and was back in the RS:X Olympic fleet at Enoshima. In fact if you work out the dates - Blanca outlived the RS:X - which wasn't part of the Olympic mix until 2008. She sailed on the Mistral One Design in 2004 at the Agios Kosmas Olympic Sailing Centre, Greece.
Santiago Lange, second to bottom image, first sailed in the Tornado class in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, finishing 10th. He win the Bronze medal in the Tornado in 2004, and 2008. World sailing dropped the Multihull for the 2012 Olympics, and then introduced the Mixed Multihull event in 2016, where Lange won the Gold medal with Cecilia Saroli. In Tokyo2020 they finished seventh overall. You can hear Santi's remarkable story on Shirley Robertson's Podcast Series 2 - Ep8 - Olympic Stories Part 2
The bottom image, of Josh Junior (NZL) is a shot of the last Finn sailing on the Olympic race course after a 69yr tenure. Junior was picked up for a propulsion rule infringement just before the finish and had to sail back onto the course, do his penalty turn and then re-cross the finish line, before being recorded as a finisher. The places lost during the incident were not sufficient to change his fifth overall finishing place in the regatta. However it was sufficient for Junior to get his name in the record books as being the last Finn sailor to compete in an Olympic Regatta.
If you want to see more video - try the IOC's Olympic Channel or in New Zealand get the SkySportsNow app on your phone, tablet or AppleTV.