Odile van Aanholt and Annette Duetz clinched the first sailing gold medal of Paris 2024 following a hugely dramatic Women’s Skiff Medal Race.
The Dutch duo went into the crucial finale trailing France’s Sarah Steyaert and Charline Picon by just a point. Both crews took turns leading the rankings throughout the Opening Series and went into the decisive race with gold on their minds.
Norway’s Helene Naess and Marie Roenningen led the Medal Race early, but the Dutch crew quickly recovered to take the lead after the first lap.
Van Aanholt and Duetz then proceeded to assert their dominance on the water and looked set to cross the line first until they went the wrong way, thinking the finish line was elsewhere.
Sweden’s Vilma Bobeck and Rebecca Netzler made the most of the error, storming ahead to win the Medal Race, which was enough for the 2023 world champions to collect an Olympic silver medal.
After amending their detour, Van Aanholt and Duetz crossed the finish line in third, which helped secure a first Olympic gold medal for the reigning world champions.
Steyaert and Picon placed sixth in the final 49erFX race of the regatta, which earnt them a memorable bronze in front of a jubilant home crowd.
Van Aanholt said: “Today we were supposed to sail a different course which we missed, which was a mistake on our part.
“There were a few seconds where Annette and I had to be resilient in order to figure out what went wrong, and we did that quickly which in the end gave us the gold medal.
“It’s been a week with a lot of different wind which is cool because it showcases our sport and shows you can’t be a one-tricky pony. We are very happy with how we sailed today.”
Netzler said: “We’re just so so happy to end this way. We’re stoked. We were so happy because we set up as a goal to go out there and win the medal race, then at least we’ve done everything that we can because points were as they were. It’s so cool to win the Medal Race here.”
Steyaert said: “It’s incredibly. We knew the teams behind were really strong so we sailed well today and secured the bronze.
“This was our last Olympic Games. I’ve never won a medal, I was thinking about that every day. All our families were here. They were incredible. We were crying with emotion every day.”
How it works:
Medals for the Women’s Skiff (49erFX) will be decided by the cumulative results of the 20-strong fleet over 12 races. The boat with the lowest total will rank first. Athletes will be able to discard their worst finishing position after they’ve completed three races.
At the end of the Opening Series, the top ten boats in the fleet will qualify for the Medal Race, which is worth double points.
The score in the Medal Race cannot be discarded. The crew with the smallest overall points total will win gold.
