Seventeen years after her first Olympics in 2004, Nikola Girke competed in her fifth in Tokyo. She was pretty sure it would be her last.
But then the Olympics changed windsurfing — her sailing event in three Games — to foiling. It’s a faster, more exciting discipline in which the board rides up out of the water on a foil, which looks like a long blade underneath. Crucially for Girke, it meant that being less than petite is a good thing.
The opportunity to compete without having to starve her five-foot-10 body into its lightest possible version was too good to pass up. So, at age 46, the West Vancouver athlete unretired for the chance to compete in the Paris Olympics this summer. – Full report
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)
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: scuttlebutt – https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2024/04/02/trying-to-reach-her-sixth-olympics/
