Sailing at the 1996 Summer Olympics

Sailing at the Games of the XXVI Olympiad
Venues	Savannah
Dates	First race: 22 July 1996 (1996-07-22) Last race: 2 August 1996 (1996-08-02)
Sailors	461 (361 male, 100 female) from 78 countries
Boats and Boards	312
Top ranked countries
Brazil: 2   0   1     Spain: 2   0   0     Ukraine: 1   0   1

Sailing/Yachting is an Olympic sport starting from the Games of the 1st Olympiad (1896 Olympics in Athens, Greece). With the exception of 1904 and possibly 1916 sailing was always a part of the Olympic program. The Sailing program of 1996 consisted of a total of ten sailing classes (disciplines). For each class, with the exception of the Soling, eleven races were scheduled from July 22 to August 2, 1996 of the coast of Savannah at the Wassaw Sound (an area of the Atlantic Ocean). For the Soling ten fleetraces were scheduled followed by a series of matchraces for the top 6 boats of the fleetrace result. The sailing was done on the various types of course configurations.

Venue

Day Marina
Coordinates:

According to the IOC statutes the contests in all sport disciplines must be held either in, or as close as possible to the city which the IOC has chosen. An exception was made for the Olympic yachting events, which customarily must be staged on the open sea. On account of this principle, the city of Savannah was chosen for the organization of the sailing events. Spectators were given the opportunity to board boats that will sail out to the courses to provide a close look at the competition. About 1000 spectators per day made use of the opportunity.

The sailing events were held of the coast of Savannah at the Wassaw Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. The venue used three locations:

• Satellite Olympic Village in Savannah
• Olympic marina on Wilmington Island. The Stars and Solings, were towed between the Olympic marina and their race areas.
• Day marina, a temporary barge system (14,000 m²) near the north side of Wassaw Sound at the mouth of the Wilmington River. The day marina was used as a forward launch area for the dinghies and windsurf boards.

Black = Marina's
Blue = Alpha course
Green = Bravo course
Yellow = Charly course
Red = Delta course

Separate course areas were used for the following pairs of classes:

• Mistral one-design (men and women)
• Europe and Laser
• Finn and Star
• 470 (men and women)
• Tornado and Soling (fleetracing)
• Soling (matchracing)

Competition

Overview

Continents	Countries	Classes	Boats	Male	Female
6	78	10	312	361	100

Continents

• Africa
• Asia
• Oceania
• Europe
• Americas

Countries

Countries that participated in the Sailing event of the 1996 Olympic Games.
Blue: Water
Gray: Never participated in OG
Dark Gray: Participated in earlier OG
Green: Country participated for the first time
Dark Blue: Country participated also on previous games
Red: Country boycotted the sailing event of the OG

Netherlands Antilles Netherlands Antilles (AHO)  Andorra (AND)  Antigua and Barbuda (ANT)  Argentina (ARG)  American Samoa (ASA)  Australia (AUS)  Austria (AUT)  Bahamas (BAH)  Barbados (BAR)  Belgium (BEL) Bermuda Bermuda (BER)  Belarus (BLR)  Brazil (BRA) Bahrain Bahrain (BRN)  Canada (CAN)  Cayman Islands (CAY)  Chile (CHI)  China (CHN)  Cook Islands (COK)  Croatia (CRO)  Cuba (CUB)  Cyprus (CYP)  Czech Republic (CZE)  Denmark (DEN)  Djibouti (DJI) Ecuador Ecuador (ECU)  Spain (ESP)  Estonia (EST)  Fiji (FIJ)  Finland (FIN)  France (FRA)  Great Britain (GBR) Georgia Georgia (GEO)  Germany (GER)  Greece (GRE)  Guatemala (GUA)  Guam (GUM) Hong Kong Hong Kong (HKG)  Hungary (HUN)  Indonesia (INA)  Ireland (IRL)  Israel (ISR)  Virgin Islands (ISV)  Italy (ITA)  British Virgin Islands (IVB)  Jamaica (JAM)  Japan (JPN)  South Korea (KOR)  Latvia (LAT)  Saint Lucia (LCA)  Malaysia (MAS)  Mexico (MEX)  Malta (MLT)  Netherlands (NED)  Norway (NOR)  New Zealand (NZL)  Paraguay (PAR)  Poland (POL)  Portugal (POR)  Puerto Rico (PUR)  Qatar (QAT)  Romania (ROM)  South Africa (RSA)  Russia (RUS)  Seychelles (SEY)  Singapore (SIN)  Slovenia (SLO)  San Marino (SMR)  Switzerland (SUI)  Slovakia (SVK)  Sweden (SWE)  Thailand (THA)  Chinese Taipei (TPE)  Turkey (TUR)  Ukraine (UKR)  Uruguay (URU)  United States (USA) Venezuela Venezuela (VEN)

Classes (equipment)

Class	Type	Event	Sailors	Trapeze	Mainsail	Jibb/Genoa	Spinnaker	First OG	Olympics so far
Mistral One Design Class	Surfboard		1	0	+	-	-	1996	1
Mistral One Design Class	Surfboard		1	0	+	-	-	1996	1
Europe	Dinghy		1	0	+	-	-	1992	2
Laser	Dinghy		1	0	+	-	-	1996	1
Finn	Dinghy		1	0	+	-	-	1952	12
470	Dinghy		2	1	+	+	+	1988	3
470	Dinghy		2	1	+	+	+	1976	6
Tornado	Multihull		2	1	+	+	-	1976	6
Star	Keelboat		2	0	+	+	-	1932	14
Soling	Keelboat		3	0	+	+	+	1972	7

1996 Olympic Classes designs

Medal summary

Women's events

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1996: Women's Mistral One Design	Hong Kong (HKG) Lee Lai Shan	New Zealand (NZL) Barbara Kendall	Italy (ITA) Alessandra Sensini
x20px 1996: Europe	Denmark (DEN) Kristine Roug	Netherlands (NED) Margriet Matthijsse	United States (USA) Courtenay Becker-Dey
1996: Women's 470	Spain (ESP) Theresa Zabell Begoña Vía-Dufresne	Japan (JPN) Yumiko Shige Alicia Kinoshita	Ukraine (UKR) Ruslana Taran Olena Pakholchik

Men's events

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1996: Men's Mistral One Design	Greece (GRE) Nikolaos Kaklamanakis	Argentina (ARG) Carlos Espinola	Israel (ISR) Gal Fridman
1996: Finn	Poland (POL) Mateusz Kusznierewicz	Belgium (BEL) Sebastien Godefroid	Netherlands (NED) Roy Heiner
1996: Men's 470	Ukraine (UKR) Yevhen Braslavets Ihor Matviyenko	Great Britain (GBR) John Merricks Ian Walker	Portugal (POR) Victor Rocha Nuno Barreto

Open events

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1996: Laser	Brazil (BRA) Robert Scheidt	Great Britain (GBR) Ben Ainslie	Norway (NOR) Peer Moberg
1996: Tornado	Spain (ESP) Fernando León José Luis Ballester	Australia (AUS) Mitch Booth Andrew Landenberger	Brazil (BRA) Lars Grael Henrique Pellicano
1996: Star	Brazil (BRA) Torben Grael Marcelo Ferreira	Sweden (SWE) Hans Wallen Bobby Lohse	Australia (AUS) Colin Beashel David Giles
1996: Soling	Germany (GER) Jochen Schümann Thomas Flach Bernd Jäkel	Russia (RUS) Georgi Shayduko Dmitri Shabanov Igor Skalin	United States (USA) Jeff Madrigali Jim Barton Kent Massey

Medal table

Sailing 1996

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Brazil (BRA)	2	0	1	3
2	Spain (ESP)	2	0	0	2
3	Ukraine (UKR)	1	0	1	2
4	Denmark (DEN)	1	0	0	1
	Germany (GER)	1	0	0	1
	Greece (GRE)	1	0	0	1
	Hong Kong Hong Kong (HKG)	1	0	0	1
	Poland (POL)	1	0	0	1
9	Great Britain (GBR)	0	2	0	2
10	Australia (AUS)	0	1	1	2
	Netherlands (NED)	0	1	1	2
12	Argentina (ARG)	0	1	0	1
	Belgium (BEL)	0	1	0	1
	Japan (JPN)	0	1	0	1
	New Zealand (NZL)	0	1	0	1
	Russia (RUS)	0	1	0	1
	Sweden (SWE)	0	1	0	1
18	United States (USA)	0	0	2	2
19	Israel (ISR)	0	0	1	1
	Italy (ITA)	0	0	1	1
	Norway (NOR)	0	0	1	1
	Portugal (POR)	0	0	1	1
Total		10	10	10	30

Sailing 1896–1996

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	United States	16	19	16	51
2	Norway	16	11	2	29
3	Great Britain	15	10	8	33
4	France	10	8	8	26
5	Denmark	10	8	4	22
6	Sweden	9	12	9	30
7	Spain	9	2	1	15
8	New Zealand	6	4	1	13
9	Netherlands	4	4	6	14
10	Soviet Union	4	4	2	10
11	Brazil	4	1	5	10
12	Australia	3	2	7	12
13	Belgium	2	4	2	8
14	West Germany	2	2	3	7
15	East Germany	2	2	2	6
	Germany	2	2	2	6
17	Italy	2	1	6	9
18	Greece	2	1	1	4
19	Finland	1	1	6	8
20	Germany(EUA)	1	1	1	3
	Switzerland	1	1	1	3
22	Bahamas	1	0	1	2
	Ukraine	1	0	1	2
24	Hong Kong	1	0	0	1
	Poland	1	0	0	1
	Mixed team (ZZX)	1	0	0	1
27	Argentina	0	3	0	3
	Austria	0	3	0	3
29	Canada	0	2	6	8
30	Portugal	0	2	2	4
31	Russia	0	1	1	2
32	Netherlands Antilles	0	1	0	1
	China	0	1	0	1
	Cuba	0	1	0	1
	Ireland	0	1	0	1
	United States Virgin Islands	0	1	0	1
	Japan	0	1	0	1
38	Estonia	0	0	2	2
39	Hungary	0	0	1	1
	Israel	0	0	1	1
Total	40	126	117	108	356

Remarks

Wildcards

After the qualification was finished the following sailors were granted a wildcard:

•  Algeria (ALG) - Mistral One Design Men, (No show)
•  Guatemala (GUA) - Mistral One Design Men, Cristian Ruata (45th)
•  Indonesia (INA) - Mistral One Design Men, I Gusti Made Oka Sulaksana (13th)
•  Thailand (THA) - Mistral One Design Men, Arun Homraruen (21st)
•  Guam (GUM) - Laser, Brett Chivers, (44th)
•  San Marino (SMR) - Laser, Luca Belluzzi (56th)
•  Sudan (SUD) - Laser, (No show)
•  Cuba (CUB) - 470 Men, Pedro Fernández & Angel Alfredo Jimenez (26th)
•  Sudan (SUD) - 470 Men, (No show)

Incidents

• The Olympic sailing facility at Savannah was before the opening of the Olympic Games (July 10) within the Hurricane Bertha warning area. Tornados, Stars and Solings were moved to the Sheraton facility. The Day Marina and the Sheraton are being evacuated; the evacuation was complete by 6 PM.
• On July 27 a Bomb explodes in Centennial Park in Atlanta, one person died, and 111 were injured. The Games continued.

Measurement

• In the Soling some irregularities were found in the construction of the hull. The Soling Class rules specify the hull laminate for each part of the hull. The measurement methods in the Soling are of high standards to ensure the One Design principle. The USA boat was found correct. . The Danish team however was randomly assigned the Spanish spare boat from the pool.
• In the 470 men the team from the USA also needed to use a spare boat.

Weather conditions

The winds on a typical day in Savannah begin is as follows:

• In the morning a light breeze from the west to the Northwest at about 5 knots
• The winds diminish in the late mornings
• By midday, the sea breeze circulation begins. When the sea breeze does rise, the winds backs to the south and Southeast
• Wind speed in the afternoon average between 7 and 12 knots

Olympic weather reports were provided by the National Weather Service from the locations Atlanta and Savannah. Doppler weather radar was used from Charleston, South Carolina. From Jacksonville, Florida the weather above the offshore courses was observed.

Sailors

During the Sailing regattas at the 1996 Summer Olympics among others the following persons were competing in the various classes:

Sailors at the 1996 Olympic Games
Israel Gal Fridman  Italy Alessandra Sensini  Brazil Robert Scheidt  Poland Mateusz Kusznierewicz  Estonia Toomas Tõniste  Germany Roland Gäbler  Error creating thumbnail: File missing Brazil Torben Grael  Spain Luis Doreste