FILE PHOTO: Paris 2024 Olympics - Sailing Training - Marseille Marina, Marseille, France - July 24, 2024. Felipe Andre of Angola in action during men's dinghy training. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo
MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) - A record number of sailors from nations where their sport is poorly represented have made it to the Paris Olympics, thanks to a support scheme set up by World Sailing.
"Our countries don't get a lot of funding for sports in general and in order to get funding you need to get results abroad," said Romanian women's dinghy sailor Ebru Bolat.
Sailors representing Angola, British Virgin Islands, Chile, Cyprus, Fiji, Malaysia, Romania and Samoa were among those presented with awards on Tuesday for getting to the Games.
They also sang 'Happy Birthday' to Mozambique's women's dinghy sailor Deizy Nhaquile, a graduate of the scheme, below the Olympic rings in the spectator area of the Marseille marina.
"The Emerging Nations Programme really helps us to try to be competitive with the others that already have history and therefore funding," Bolat told Reuters.
"Ever since I was 14 I have dreamt of qualifying for the Olympics," said Bolat, 24, who is the first female sailor to represent Romania at the Games.
World Sailing, the sport's governing body, set up the support programme, using the resources of more developed nations and its own team as part of its efforts to widen participation and defend its Olympic representation.
"One of the acid tests is how many nations we get into the Olympic Games. In Tokyo we had eight emerging nations that had come through our programme and here we have got 26," World Sailing CEO David Graham told Reuters.
Graham said World Sailing was investing a lot of its Olympic dividend into the programme, which it runs in tandem with another scheme aimed specifically at encouraging women.
"The biggest challenge is we are an equipment-based sport and in the Olympic movement we've got 10 disciplines, so it's what equipment we assist in putting in," Graham added.
"Perhaps more important is the infrastructure around it. You can't just dump a load of equipment on the beach... So we need to make sure we have a good coaching infrastructure," he said.
Graham said that the new disciplines of foiling windsurfing and kiteboarding now offered another avenue for sailors from emerging nations to pursue their Olympic dreams.
For Malaysian men's dinghy sailor Khairulnizam Mohd Afendy, who is at his fourth Olympics, the coaching and the boat provided by the programme have been essential.
"We are not a sailing country... we hope our country can look more toward this sport as we keep delivering," he said.
(Reporting by Alexander Smith; Editing by Clare Fallon)
