First batch of Medal Races take place Wednesday at the Ready Steady Tokyo, Olympic test event in Enoshima.
Britain has six competitors in the five medal races, four of them are already in podium places and the other two are within striking distance . . . Now that is pretty impressive!
The test event is run along Olympic with one(ish) entry per country and the same fleet race/medal race format. The majority of the competitors you see here will, most likely be who you race against at Tokyo 2020.
As well as testing the Tokyo venue facilities and organisation, this gives the team selectors a good idea of how their provisional Olympic team selections will perform in the real thing.
If a competitor does not make the medal race they may be looking at their plan B.
Why is making the medal podium so important at this stage?
Well for the big hitters, such as Britain, the Olympic teams are supported by government funding through the UK Sport organisation, and this is allocated via an eight year performance development model.
Success is measured by medals won, the number of medallists developed, and the quality of the systems and processes in place.
So medals are important to maintain (or increase) the amount of support received – currently £25,747,417 for the 2017-2020 period.
Various targets are set . . . for the 2019 Tokyo Test Event it is 3-6 medals, so the RYA run British Sailing Team is well on schedule to hit their target.
The first Medal Race to take place is the 49erFX at 13:30 local time (05:30 UK) Wednesday.
Both the 49er and RS:X Women will follow at 14:30, with the RS:X Men and Nacra 17 fleets kicking off at 15:30.
Final fleet racing for the other five events starts at around 12:00. Their medal race is Thursday.
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