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Sailing at the 1968 Summer Olympics

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Venues
  
Acapulco

Boats
  
123

0 02 !
  
0 03 !

Sailors
  
247 from 40 countries

2 01 !
  
0 02 !

Dates
  
First race: 14 October 1968 (1968-10-14) Last race: 21 October 1968 (1968-10-21)

Sailing/Yachting is an Olympic sport starting from the Games of the 1st Olympiad (1896 Olympics in Athens Greece. With the exception of 1904 and possible 1916 sailing was always a part of the Olympic program.

Contents

The Sailing program of 1968 consisted of a total of five sailing classes (disciplines). For each class seven races were scheduled from 14 October 1968 to 21 October 1968 off the coast of Acapulco in the Bay of Acapulco.

The sailing was done on the triangular type Olympic courses.

Venue

Acapulco Bay is located on the Pacific coast in the state of Guerrero, 250 miles from Mexico City. The facilities at Club de Yates were improved and modified. 20,000 square metres of new docks provided with potable water, electricity and telephones were created. The buoys bearing colored flags delineated the three course areas.

Technical control was assured by a staff of measurers for gauging all yachts before racing.

The Olympic Village, located in the Caleta Hotel, provided accommodation for 503 competitors, trainers, team managers from 40 countries.

Continents

  • Asia
  • Oceania
  • Europe
  • Americas

    • Classes (equipment)

    = Male, = Female, = Open

    Sailing

  • This Olympic sailing event was gender independent, but turned out to be a Men only event. This was one of the triggers to create gender specific events. This however had to wait until 1988.
  •  Paul Elvstrøm (DEN) was trying to win his fifth Gold medal. This time in the Star. He came close. 4th.
  •  Rodney Pattison (GBR) won his first Olympic medal (Gold) in his boat Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. It is difficult to appoint Olympic records to sailing, but the score of this Flying Dutchman team would hold probably the record of best olympic score: DSQ, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2!
  • In each of the five classes there was a major difference in points between the gold and the silver medalists.

    • Sailors

    During the Sailing regattas at the 1968 Summer Olympics among others the following persons were competing in the various classes:

  • Royalties
  •  Norway (NOR), King of Norway, HrH Crownprince Harald in the 5.5 Metre
  • Sportmanagers
  •  Belgium (BEL), President International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge in the Finn
  •  Finland (FIN), Future president International Sailing Federation, Peter Tallberg in the Star
  •  Canada (CAN), Future president International Sailing Federation, Paul Henderson in the Finn
  •  Greece (GRE). Future holder of the Silver Olympic Order, George Andreadis in the Flying Dutchman

    • References

    Sailing at the 1968 Summer Olympics Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA