RISE helps achieving Olympic medals

The Swedish sailing team came home from the recent unified World Sailing World Championship with a gold (FX), a bronze (NACRA 17) and four classes qualified for Paris 2024 Olympics. Behind those results there has been important input from RISE.

RISE heavily contributed to the NACRA 17 equipment assessment and selection, and with the 470 in some parts of the boat preparation. 

- It’s great to see first-hand how our help can really give an edge to the team, says Laura Marimon Giovannetti, senior researcher and project manager at RISE.

Laura has a background as an elite athlete in sailing, representing Italy and then the British Sailing Team at World and European championships. For a large part of her time Laura now works in research and development projects for the Swedish Olympic Sailing Team through RISE. 

- Sailing is a complex sport so the knowledge coming from my engineering background is a valuable tool. Coupled with my sailing expertise, it can pinpoint the key learnings that the sailors and fellow coaches need to carry on from a long day of sailing without taking too much of their time in the evenings.

As a nation Sweden finished third overall on the medal standings with just The Netherlands (hosting nation) and Israel in front. A key feature is that the two medals come from young teams. The other two results in the top 10 are from the Tokyo 2020 medallist, giving the Swedish sailing team a chance to challenge for four medals at next summer’s Olympic games! 

Combining maritime and data system expertise, RISE has reported every day on race strategy and boat performances assessing the on-the-water data coming off the race committees and the coaches’ ribs. Before the split between gold and silver fleet Laura was specifically asked by the FX team to dig a bit deeper on their performance, that ultimately lead to a gold medal.

- Thank you, Laura and RISE for the help in achieving this. We have made great progress, and this has played a big part, says Magnus Grävare, national team captain of the Swedish Sailing Federation. 

Thanks to the support from the Swedish Olympic Committee and the Swedish sailing team, Laura was also able to participate to the WISH program, a leadership program for high performance female coaches supported by the International Olympic Committee and Olympic solidarity.

Laura Marimon Giovannetti comments:

- I was selected by World Sailing together with two more female coaches from sailing and surrounded by many more amazing women from other sports!