Will meteorology help Olympic success?

U.S. Sailing Team meteorologist Chelsea Carlson Freas shares insights with The Weather Channel on how weather data and instincts could help bring home a gold medal as this summer’s Olympics races take place along France’s southern coast in the city of Marseilles:

We started collecting data in 2021, so it’s actually while the Tokyo Games were going on I was already forecasting for Marseille and starting to look at the weather there. So it’s been really a solid four years now we’ve been getting ready for Marseille.

We get very specific; there is a report that goes out every morning in which I put together a forecast that’s customized to each specific race area, with some of them down to one knot to half a knot range to identify whether they would change equipment if it’s 6 knots verses if it’s 7, so you have to be super accurate on the speed and direction.

A lot of the sailors now I’ve worked with them long enough, and have developed enough of a relationship that they have the knowledge that when they’re out there, even if I’m not telling them, they know if a cloud is coming in on the side of the race course, they know what to do and how to win a race.

That happened in one of our world championships in 2022 where we won a medal race because they saw cloud and was like ‘I know exactly what to do Chelsea you taught me this’ and they played it just right and they won the race and everyone else kind of went the wrong way, so it was cool

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 28-August 9

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