Brazilian Olympic star Martine Grael will become the first woman to helm an F50 catamaran in SailGP

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Brazilian Olympic star Martine Grael will become the first woman to helm an F50 catamaran in SailGP

2024-09-03 03:17 Last Updated At：03:20

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Two-time Olympic gold medalist Martine Grael will become the first woman to helm an F50 foiling catamaran in SailGP when a new Brazilian team debuts in the fifth season of tech billionaire Larry Ellison’s global league.

Grael was introduced Monday during a news conference in Rio de Janeiro, which will host a regatta May 3-4 on Guanabara Bay against the backdrop of Sugarloaf Mountain.

“I'm going to be representing every girl out there. There are a few girls that could be in this position. So, I’m very honored to be the first one," Grael said in a video interview with The Associated Press.

“And honestly, I think it’s going to be a great challenge, not just for me as a girl, but as a sports person, to come in a circuit that is already established and trying to perform when there’s teams there that are already skilled,” she added. "I think it’s going to take every little bit.”

SailGP, which was launched in 2019 by Ellison and five-time America's Cup winner Russell Coutts of New Zealand, includes most of the world's top sailors, including America's Cup champions and Olympic medalists. Season 5 will have 11 teams competing in 14 regattas.

Grael's father, Torben, counts two golds among his five Olympic medals, skippered the winning team in the 2008-09 Volvo Ocean Race and has sailed in the America's Cup.

Martine Grael and crew Kahena Kunze won the 49erFX gold medal in home waters in 2016, holding off New Zealand by two seconds in the last race of the regatta and setting off a wild celebration on Flamengo Beach. As their skiff approached the shore, a few dozen people waded into the water, lifted the skiff and carried it up to the beach, with the sailors standing on top of it.

They repeated as gold medalists in Tokyo and finished eighth in Paris last month. Grael crewed with Team AkzoNobel in the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race.

She said she has goosebumps thinking about what’s ahead in making the jump from the 49erFX to the wingsailed F50s, and doesn’t think it matters that she has two gold medals.

“It matters what you do and your attitude,” she said. “I think it really matters what you put in in the moment and how your team takes it.”

SailGP started a Women’s Pathway Program in 2021. Since then, there has been a woman on every boat in every race, with a total of 37 women having raced onboard F50s. Most teams have an active roster of three women alongside their male counterparts.

“I think I was born in the right moment,” said Grael, 33, who grew up in Niterói, across Guanabara Bay from Rio.

“She was the obvious choice,” Coutts told the AP. “Brazil’s got a strong history in Olympic sailing. And when you look at the talent that’s available, she’s a standout candidate. She’s got two gold medals. She’s proven that she can perform under pressure.”

If the Brazilian team puts the right crew around Grael, “I don’t see any reason why they can’t do really well," Coutts said. "I think that’s super exciting for the development of women’s sailing because if she does do well and starts winning races at that level against the best in the world, you’ve got to think that’s going to have an impact on all the young female sailors out there, to be aspiring to do a similar thing to her.

“And it is unique that she’s competing against the best males in the sport," Coutts added.

Tom Slingsby, an Olympic gold medalist and former America’s Cup champion, dominated SailGP's first three seasons before Diego Botin of Spain stunned Slingsby and Peter Burling of New Zealand in the $2 million, winner-take-all Season 4 championship race on July 13. Three weeks later, Botin and Florian Trittel, his SailGP wing trimmer, won the Olympic gold medal in the 49er.

Burling has one gold among his three Olympic medals and is the two-time reigning America’s Cup champion helmsman. British helmsman Giles Scott is a two-time Olympic gold medalist. Slingsby, Burling and Scott are currently helming in the America's Cup trials in Barcelona.

“It’s not going to be easy, but she’s got the talent to succeed, I think,” Coutts said.

Grael was scheduled to fly to Bermuda on Monday night to participate in SailGP's first preseason training camp aboard an F50 fitted with new T-foils that are designed to make the boats faster. She'll get more time in the boat at a camp before the season opener in Dubai on Nov. 23-24.

Bernie Wilson has covered sailing for The Associated Press since 1991.

Rising floodwaters trigger evacuations in Czech Republic and Poland

2024-09-15 18:37 Last Updated At：18:41

PRAGUE (AP) — Another night of torrential rains pounding Central Europe forced massive evacuations in the hardest hit areas in the Czech Republic, where floods reached extreme levels on Sunday.

Meteorologists have warned the situation still might get worse as waters in most rivers are rising, the flood wave made its way through the country and more heavy rains could return overnight.

Authorities declared the highest flood warnings in almost 90 places across the country and in two northeastern regions that recorded the biggest rainfall in recent days, including the Jeseniky mountains near the Polish border.

In the city of Opava, up to 10,000 people out of a population of some 56,000 have been asked to leave their homes for higher ground. Rescuers used boats to transport people to safety in a neighborhood flooded by the raging Opava River.

“There’s no reason to wait,” Mayor Tomáš Navrátil told the Czech public radio. He said the situation was worse than during the last devastating floods in 1997, known as the “flood of the century.”

“We have to focus on saving lives,” Prime Minister Petr Fiala told the Czech public television Sunday. His government was to possibly meet Monday to assess the damages.

Thousands of others also were evacuated in the towns of Krnov and Cesky Tesin. The Oder River that flows to Poland was expected to reach extreme levels in the city of Ostrava and later in Bohumin.

Towns and villages in the Jeseniky mountains, including the local center of Jesenik, were inundated and isolated by raging waters that turned roads into rivers. The military sent a helicopter to help with evacuations.

Four people who were swept away by waters were missing, police said.

About 260,000 households were without power Sunday morning in the entire country while traffic was halted on many roads, including the major D1 highway.

A firefighter died after “slipping on stairs” while pumping out a flooded basement in the town of Tulln, the head of the fire department of Lower Austria Dietmar Fahrafellner told reporters on Sunday.

Authorities declared the entire state of Lower Austria a disaster zone. The situation remains tense, especially at the water reservoir of Ottenstein, which is expected to reach its maximum capacity on Sunday.

In Poland, one person was presumed dead in floods in the southwest, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Sunday.

Tusk said the situation was “dramatic” around the town of Klodzko, with some 25,000 residents, located in a valley in the Sudetes mountains near the border with the Czech Republic.

In Glucholazy, rising waters overflowed a river embankment and flooded streets and houses. Mayor Paweł Szymkowicz said, “we are drowning” and appealed to residents to evacuate to high ground.

Energy supplies and communications were cut off in some flooded areas and regions may resort to using the satellite-based Starlink service, Tusk said.

Several Central European nations have been hit by severe flooding, including Romania, where four people had died, as well as Austria, Germany, Slovakia and Hungary, as a result of a low-pressure system from northern Italy dumping heavy rainfall in the wide region.

The weather change arrived following a hot start to September in the region, including in Romania. Scientists have documented Earth’s hottest summer, breaking a record set just a year ago.

A hotter atmosphere, driven by human-caused climate change, can lead to more intense rainfall.

Associated Press writer Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland and video journalist Philipp-Moritz Jenne in Vienna contributed to this report.

Brazilian Olympic star Martine Grael will become the first woman to helm an F50 catamaran in SailGP

Sport

Brazilian Olympic star Martine Grael will become the first woman to helm an F50 catamaran in SailGP

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