Sisters earn Paris selection at Worlds

Erwan Fischer and Clement Pequin (FRA) and Odile van Aanholt and Annette Duetz (NED) claimed the top titles at the 2024 49er and 49erFX World Championships held March 5-10 in Lanzarote, Spain. For Canada, the 8th place finish by Georgia and Antonia Lewin-LaFrance earned them selection for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

The event was the first of two events being used by Canada for selection, but their process stated that if only one team places in the top 8 at the 2024 World Championship and no other team places within 10 overall finish positions from the team that finished in the top 8, they would automatically be nominated to the Olympic Team.

As the next Canadian team was Ali ten Hove and Mariah Millen in 30th, there is now no need for the second selection event at 2024 Princess Sofia Regatta on April 1-6 in Palma, Spain.

“We’re just absolutely stunned,” said the sisters. “We were still in 10th place overall going into the medal race. At that point, we had already achieved our team performance goal of being in the top 10 at these Worlds. But we knew that 8th, the place we needed to make in order to automatically qualify ourselves for the Olympics, was within reach.

“In the medal race, we wanted to just sail the best we could. When we crossed the finish line in second, the reality of it hit us: we had just earned ourselves a ticket to Paris.

“We’re so incredibly honored to have done this. We were competing against a highly skilled and experienced team for this Olympic spot. We were very proud to have two world class Canadian teams going head to head, and we’re extremely grateful to have been pushed so hard by them.”

The Worlds were also being used by the USA for their Paris 2024 Olympic selection in the Women’s Skiff event, and while Stephanie Roble/ Maggie Shea could not seal selection, their 11th place finish built a big lead over Paris Henken/Anna Tobias who finished 26th.

The final selection event is 2024 Princess Sofia Regatta, with the finish position from both events combined to determine the nomination.

For the USA men in the 49er, the top Andrew Mollerus and Ian MacDiarmid finished 8th overall while Paris 2024 representatives Ian Barrows and Hans Henken were 16th.

For Canada, the team comprised of Will Jones and Justin Barnes ended up in 39th place, finishing ahead of two other Canadian teams: Arie Moffat/ Hunter Hoy in 50th and Thomas and William Staples in 55th. The Princess Sofia Regatta will conclude their Paris selection process.

Selection systems:
• Canada: https://www.sailing.ca/sc_event/2024-olympic-games
• USA: https://www.ussailing.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2024-OLY-SAI-ATH-amended-6.13.23-SIGNED.pdf

Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing Program*:
Men’s One Person Dinghy – ILCA 7 (41)
Women’s One Person Dinghy – ILCA 6 (41)
Mixed Two Person Dinghy – 470 (19)
Men’s Skiff – 49er (20)
Women’s Skiff – 49erFX (20)
Men’s Kiteboard – Formula Kite Class (20)
Women’s Kiteboard – Formula Kite Class (20)
Men’s Windsurfing – iQFOiL (24)
Women’s Windsurfing – iQFOiL (24)
Mixed Multihull – Nacra 17 (19)
* Quota per event in parenthesis but does not include Universality Places (2 men, 2 women)

Venue: Marseille, France
Dates: July 28-August 9

Details:
• Paris website: https://www.paris2024.org/en/the-olympic-games-paris-2024/
• World Sailing microsite: https://paris2024.sailing.org/

Source: Sail Canada