Olympics tomorrow? Really?

Sarah Douglas

July 22, 2021

The Olympics start tomorrow (July 23) and the sailing competition begins on Sunday. By August 4, ten days later, the medals will be presented (or transferred in hermetically sealed pouches) and our athletes will be on the plane. In our first issue next month, we will report the results and that’s it.

I will leave it to others to report on the feelings of Tokyo’s citizens, Toyota’s advertising decisions, the shenanigans of the Olympic Organizing Committees and contagious soccer players.

All we can do is hope that our team stays safe, sails well and hopefully brings home some hardware. But even if they don’t a huge stack of praise is in order. I was made even more aware of this lately, watching Laser sailor Sarah Douglas sweating it out prior to her departure in order to get ready for the heat of Japan in the summer. Perhaps most remarkable was that I saw this on CBC. I have previously lamented the lack of coverage of our team, so I was even further delighted to see a big feature on Ali ten Hove and Mariah Millen our 49er FX pair titled “Squirrel Girls” in the Toronto Star. There may well have been other coverage – our Sailing Team appears to have been discovered.

Watching their four year plan evolve into a five year marathon surrounded by pandemics and on-again-off-again doubts, yet soldiering on deserves medals all round for the whole team. The competition may yet explode- let’s hope not. But even before the gun goes, our National Sailing Team members deserves gold all round. Go get ‘em.

Click here to see Sarah Douglas’ CBC interview: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1920644675846/

As of press time on July 21.

John Morris
Online Editor
Canadian Yachting Magazine
CYonboard@kerrwil.com

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