Rio 2016: Saskia Clark and Hannah Mills made to wait for sailing gold due to lack of wind
The 470 pair will have to come back and do it all over again on Thursday
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Your support makes all the difference.Would you believe it, the wrong kind of wind. Saskia Clark and Hannah Mills will just have to come back to the Marina da Gloria on Thursday to do it all over again in the women’s 470 sailing class.
At least they know gold is theirs, which has a way of calming the nerves while you are killing time waiting for the wind to change direction.
“It didn’t look that bad,” said Clark. “It was a steady northerly, a drainage wind, which we don’t have very much of. I guess the people on the race committee boat were happy for that to disappear and wait for a sea breeze, but that didn’t happen.”
Clark, whose Olympic career ends at this regatta, joked that she was just prolonging her sailing life as a competitive sailor. If you didn’t laugh you would cry in a town that has seen rowing cancelled due to blustery conditions.
So what’s a girl to do bobbing up and down on a boat for the best part of three hours? What goes on on the boat stays on the boat. “Endless going to the toilet, lots of drinking, chat with our coach, camera boat, have a chat with them, try to get a Mexican wave going on the beach. We’ll get on that tomorrow,” said Clark.
On a more serious note she added: “If it looks like it’s going to happen we get engaged, get a feel for conditions otherwise we switched down so we don’t fry our brains, because that would have been an intense three hours if we thought we were going to race all the time.”
The conditions are said to be favourable for Thursday, which means the party can finally start. “We planned to celebrate with friends and family who have made the trip out here, a nice evening at GB House but that can easily be postponed,” Mills said.
“It’s disappointing. We wanted to get things wrapped up obviously, but good things come to those that wait so we will be waiting another 24 hours. We knew it could be tricky. It’s the sort of venue where the wind changes a lot.”
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