Olympics

From campaigning in the 49er, to coaching Olympic keelboat and match race sailors, Maurice Paardenkooper has done it all. He won a silver medal with his Dutch Yngling project at the 2008 Games in Beijing. On the road to London 2012 he made a transfer to the British Federation to work with Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor. Now, he has commenced a new chapter in his professional career…

Ben Rhodes overcame numerous injury setbacks to qualify for his second Olympics in the 49er event with Stevie Morrison, where they finished fifth. The pair are back on the campaign trail for Rio 2016

Stevie Morrison competed at his second Olympics in 2012, sailing with Ben Rhodes in the 49er event where they finished fifth after a tough battle against injury and selection. The pair are campaigning again in the 49er for Rio

Lucy Macgregor is competing in the first ever World Championship in the new Nacra 17 multihull class, which she switched to after her Women’s Match Racing event was removed from the Games programme. Lucy finished seventh at the 2012 Games, where she competed with younger sister Kate and Annie Lush....

So that was the Olympics! Justin's waiting for a plane back to Spain having finished up his duties in Weymouth. Andy went to the Nothe Course to join the 4,000 other spectators and find out what all the fuss was about. Well, with a girl-over-board incident in the gold-medal-deciding match race between Australia and Spain, he wasn't disappointed.....

Jo Aleh certainly knows her history. Her country has won medals in the windsurfing in recent memory, but as the Kiwi 470 gold medallist pointed out today: “New Zealand hasn’t won a ‘sit down’ sailing medal since 1992....”

Australia became the most successful sailing nation at the Olympic Regatta after Mat Belcher and Malcolm Page secured gold ahead of GBR in the men's 470. Then it was New Zealand's turn for gold, Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie winning the medal race of the women's 470, with Britain's Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark having to settle for silver, with the Dutch team taking bronze. The Olympic Regatta is nearly over, bar the women's match racing, as Justin and Andy look back at today's light-wind drama....

Eight years ago in Athens, Joe Glanfield had wrapped up an Olympic silver medal with a race to spare. He was sailing in the men’s 470 with helmsman Nick Rogers and if they played their cards right against the Americans in the final race, a gold medal might even come their way. But it didn’t work out that way.....

Sailing never gets any coverage in the national newspapers, particularly not a tabloid 'red top' paper like The Sun. But with Justin away with his bucket and spade on Weymouth beach, Andy asks The Sun's reporter Bob Harris why Olympic sailing has finally caught the imagination of the general public. Listen out too for Kate Laven of The Daily Telegraph who gatecrashes the interview....

With gold and silver already wrapped up by Australia and NZ (training partners, by the way), all the excitement in the 49er finale focused on which of five teams would take bronze....

The Danes won a tense battle for bronze in the 49er Medal Race in the lightest winds yet seen in Weymouth since the start of the Olympic Regatta. Justin and Andy discuss the 49er race, the match race that's in store between GB and NZ in the women's 470 a couple of days from now, and the failure of the USA to win a single medal at this Olympiad. The winner of the most sailing medals in the history of the modern Games, the last American hope vanished with the surprise exit of Anna Tunnicliffe's match racing team at the quarter final stage....

So much going on today, even if the racing schedule is starting to thin out in Weymouth. Here’s a flavour of what I found out chatting to various sailors, coaches and hangers-on around the Olympic centre....