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You can have your Michael Phelps, Jamaican sprinters and Chinese weightlifters. My heroes of the Games, besides Carol Huynh and the eights, are Danish sailors Jonas Warrer and Martin Kirketerp Ibsen. They competed in the exceedingly well known 49er skiff class, named after Joe Montana, I believe.
Anyway, these guys are leading with one race to go. All they need is a seventh in the final race to clinch the gold. But the seas off the Olympic sailing venue at Qingdao, where I once stayed in a room with a sign outside saying “Mao slept here”, were rough that day. Just before the start of the race, their mast broke. The horror! But the plucky Danes did what anyone would do. They raced back to port, frantically borrowed a boat from Croatia, made some rapid adjustments, and sailed back to the starting line, with the race already underway. They crossed the line just four seconds ahead of the cut-off time. Off they went, sailing an unfamiliar boat in choppy, wind-swept seas that bounced their light craft around like a ping-pong ball.
With 100 metres to go, the Danes' Croatian boat capsized. No problem. They just stood on the keel until the boat went right side up. What did they need to clinch the gold again? Oh yeah, a seventh-place finish. They crossed the line seventh.
That wasn't the end of it. Protests from the other competitors flew around like a swarm of excited editors. The sailing jury (hello sailor!) met into the wee small hours, took a break, and then finally announced their decision. Gold for Denmark.
Mind you, I don't know why I wasted all this space on this tale of derring-do. The medalist named Ibsen, naturally, summed it up in far fewer words. “We snap the mast, we go in, we take the Croatian boat. We make the start with four seconds to spare. If we had been four seconds later, we wouldn't have been Olympic champions. And then the protest and the postponement of the protest. Everything is just unreal.”
Ho hum. Just another day at sea. Toast the Danish!
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