Paris 2024: Making the sacrifices

The Paris 2024 Sailing Test Event enables national teams in 2023 to send one representative for each of the ten divisions, offering a valued experience at the sailing venue in Marseille, France. This preview will be on July 9-16, though the athletes are not necessarily who will represent the country next year.

One such USA team seeking selection for the ‘real thing’ is Louisa Nordstrom and Trevor Bornarth in the Mixed Two Person Dinghy (470). Here is their latest update:

We have just finished up a month in the future Olympic venue – Marseille, France – and we are brimming with excitement. This full month of intensive preparation has been nothing short of transformative, propelling our team closer to our ultimate goal of Olympic success. What better motivation than to train on the future Olympic race course.

This past month by the numbers:
• Days on the water: 20
• Hours on the water: 66.5

Even accounting for several days of traveling and transporting boats across Europe, we managed to put in a massive chunk of time on the water this month. We were fortunate to be supported by some very high caliber coaches as well this month to make the most of our time. Massive thank you to Morgan Reeser and Luke Patience for your invaluable lessons and expertise!

Our training was centered around four different “coach run” regattas, which are essentially informal training regattas run by the 470 coaches. Marseille is split up into four different course areas for the Olympics, and during these events we had racing move around so we could get a taste for each course area and how they differ.

It’s invaluable to get to train in the Olympic venue during a similar time period to when the Olympics will take place next year, as weather patterns are quite unique to each venue. We got to see everything Marseille had to offer, seeing the broad range of conditions on each race course. A lot of days in the sea breeze, some light and variable days, and some epic mistral days!

With each regatta we had a different focus. With the help of our coaching expertise, we were able to do a bit of equipment testing with the new masts we’ve purchased since breaking our one and only mast at the Europeans last month.

Lots of progress on that front, and we were also able to make a lot of gains with our starting, general upwind speed, and also our downwind pumping technique.

Overall, though, having time to familiarize ourselves with the Olympic venue was such a blessing and we look forward to spending more time here soon!

In addition to our rigorous training schedule on the water, we managed to fit in quite a bit of productive cross training and exploration of the beautiful city of Marseille. The massive mountain overlooking the Olympic water served as a great playground and training area for us.

We also spent some time exploring the local gyms, coffee shops, and boulangeries! It was such an experience to live and train in the future Olympic city. Trevor and I both feel like it’s ignited a fire of determination for us both to be back here this time next year.

Going for training runs overlooking the medal race course, just makes you visualize what it will be like in a year’s time when the sea walls will be crowded by spectators watching the best in the world vie for Gold. Fueling our dreams when we fall asleep at night, that’s for sure.

What’s next?
While we will not be competing in the Test Event this upcoming week, we are not stopping training. We are resuming training in the UK with our training partners to continue progressing on our goals before the upcoming World Championship in August!

In our previous newsletter, we expressed our frustrations with our equipment (or lack thereof!). We have been able to make significant progress on this front, and we are excited to share that we have been able to secure a much newer hull to use for the Worlds! We used it for the last two coach regattas in Marseille and it’s astounding to feel the difference of a stiffer hull!

We are confident this was the right move for our team, and while the costs were high, we think this is a necessary investment for our team to be able to compete at the highest level.

It was difficult to make ends meet this past month, especially with adding the cost of a new boat to our expense list. It’s worth it to make these sacrifices though, and we are giving everything we have in the final push towards the 2023 Sailing World Championships (August 11-20) in the Hague, Netherlands.

Being able to spend an entire month in Marseille was no easy feat, and we would not have been able to do so without the generous support of our sponsors! Thank you for believing in us!

If you’d like to make a contribution to our team to help support our efforts click here to see how!

Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing Program:
Men’s One Person Dinghy – ILCA 7
Women’s One Person Dinghy – ILCA 6
Mixed Two Person Dinghy – 470
Men’s Skiff – 49er
Women’s Skiff – 49erFx
Men’s Kiteboard – Formula Kite Class
Women’s Kiteboard – Formula Kite Class
Men’s Windsurfing – iQFoil
Women’s Windsurfing – iQFoil
Mixed Multihull – Nacra 17

Venue: Marseille, France
Dates: July 26-August 11

Details: https://www.paris2024.org/en/the-olympic-games-paris-2024/