The buildup to any Olympiad is a long process, with all sorts of promises being made and policies declared by the host city and the nation around it. France's very special connection to the revival of the modern Olympics at Athens in 1896 - and then at Paris itself in 1900 and again in 1924 - meant that positions were being taken up for the 2024 Paris/Marseilles Olympics that proved difficult and then impossible to sustain.
Thus it seemed a racing certainty that 2024 would see offshore racing included in the sailing portfolio at Marseilles, or perhaps at a separate special venue on France's Atlantic coast, for all things seemed possible as the dream-making notion of the French venue took hold.
The Jeanneau Sun Fast 30 OD was one of the boats proposed for a two-handed offshore class in the Sailing Olympics
But in the end, ideas about a special nine to ten metre two-handed boat to be sailed by a male-female duo became too freighted with problems. Analysts found themselves having to observe a situation where the financial status and general standing of the promoting body was being quietly, but determinedly and damagingly, questioned ahead of any reasonable consideration of the idea.
PLAYING THE MAN
In other words, it became a matter of playing the man rather than the ball, something to which we aren't strangers in Ireland. And before anyone knew it, the time had run out for a workable Olympic offshore racing programme to be designed and then implemented.
For the problem really is that, for any sport - other than the most basic athletics categories - fitting into the Olympics strait-jacket involves a significant element of distortion in the way that each specialist sport's events are structured.
OLYMPICS AIR OF UNREALITY
The sailing Olympics - as we saw them in 2024 - did not really reflect the overall sailing scene in countries where, like Ireland, sailing has been a part of the fabric of life for centuries. On the contrary, Olympic sailing screams "artificiality" when set against the sailing as practiced by its longtime enthusiasts worldwide.
A certain air of unreality – the Olympic Harbour at Marseille, cut off from the town by the coast-hugging autoroute
SALVADOR DALI CONCEPT
It could be argued, of course, that if sailing is going to attract popular interest and a global audience, then it has to become a caricature of itself. The America's Cup, as the pinnacle of attention-seeking sailing, has had to become so absurd that it is sublime. It is now a sailing event that might have been conceived by Salvador Dali, and the fact that it is taking place at Barcelona, the city where the eccentric Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi most obviously strutted his stuff, is wholly appropriate.
The show goes on. Historic International 12 Metres racing off Barcelona as part of the 37th America's Cup cavalcade
GRITTY REALITY OF FASTNET CENTENARY
But the world of offshore racing is successfully set in a much more gritty reality. Does it need the Olympics at all? When you begin to think of what the Centenary Fastnet Race next year is going to be like, and what it is going to mean for the thousands taking part, it really does make the Olympic sailing circus seem like a rather frivolous matter.
This was a thought which also arose when some voices suggested that the best way to incorporate offshore racing into the Paris Olympics was through a modification of the Figaro Solitaire into some sort of changed structure which would more clearly reflect the Olympic ethos.
MAGNIFICENTLY CRAZY
There were those in the Figaro Solo world who went along with this, while the rest of us though that the Figaro Solo setup is so magnificently crazy that it would be total sacrilege to re-shape it in any way so that it could ultimately disappear into the maw of the Olympic monster.
The Figaro Solo Paprec fleet in full cry Photo: Bob Bateman
Thus as the 2024 Olympics fade from memory and the Marseille sailing with them, the Figaro Solo 2024 has stepped centre stage at precisely the right moment to receive the attention it deserves. And after three very different stages, Tom Dolan, the farmboy from Meath who moved up in sailing into the French short-handed sailing scene through the Glenans movementand his own remarkable talent, has won it overall with a particularly impressive win in the second leg from Gijon west round Finisterre and down round the Sisargas islands, and then back into Biscay and across to Royan.
Finding his feet. The young Tom Dolan at a pre-race briefing during his early days in France
'USHANT SHOULD NOT BE SIGHTED'
It was, however, the final 715 mile leg which was the real test. In effect, it was round Ushant and return after crossing the English Channel. Back in the great days of sail, the Admiralty Pilot's instructions for sailing vessels getting westward out of the trap which is the west-facing English Channel opened with the terse comment: "Ushant should not be sighted".
Heading oceanwards to windward in a relatively unweatherly square rigger certainly was a bit of an all-or-nothing experience in the area. But a modern sailing boat in fair weather can find the island-scattered rock-strewn Ushant area a fascinating cruising ground.
AVOIDING HASSLE
Nevertheless when Irish Cruising Club Commodore Alan Markey was plotting his course from Ireland to South Brittany for this summer Club Cruise-in-Company there, he realised that piloting the tide-riven Chenal du Four and Raz de Seine wasn't worth the hassle, for by sailing ten miles more he stayed west of all the problems, and arrived in Benodet as fresh as daisy.
The fierce tides of Ushant
In the windy conditions in which the Figaro's final leg was sailed, the Race Director seemed to delight in sending the fleet into conditions which no-one would otherwise seek. But despite exhaustion and the growing weight of expectation among his supporters, Tom hung in such that his close seventh place was enough to give him the overall win.
INSTANT GOLD MEDAL
It is a rare achievement to win a leg of the Figaro Solo. It is even rarer to do that, and then win overall in the one staging of this magnificent classic. In the absence of a designated 2024 Olympic Gold Medal for offshore racing, it's a more than reasonable notion to create it immediately and award it forthwith to Tom Dolan.
