4 months ago
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ELLIE Aldridge delivered a glorious golden climax to GB’s Olympic regatta to forget.
And the brilliant Brit then revealed how she had outfoxed French rival Loriane Nolot by choosing a SMALLER kite.
AP
AP
APAldridge went into the four boat kite foiling final in Marseille Marina knowing she had to beat Nolot twice without a loss in the handicap-style climax to land the ultimate prize.
She did it in spectacular style, beating Nolot in a dramatic head to head first race as the wind finally got above a breeze and then streaking career at nearly 45mph after her opponent was dumped in the drink in the second heat.
Aldridge put her hands over her face in delirious delight as she crossed the line after beating world champion Nolot for the first time in her career.
She said: “It’s still crazy. The whole thing feels like a dream. It doesn’t feel real.
“I knew that if everything aligned, the conditions were perfect and everything happened as we wanted I could beat her. And I did.
“In the final, especially if you’re starting behind, the first race is one where you’ve got to go out all firing.
“I was in a different kite size to everyone else. I was on the smaller kite, the 15m, and they were all on 21m.
“So I knew that I had to race slightly differently to them in order to get around them because the big kite is going to be faster downwind and the smaller kite is going to be faster outwind.
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Getty“When Loriane rounded ahead of me in the first race on the upwind mark, I knew that was my only time to overtake her.
“I just about managed to get on the inside and get in front of her with enough space behind me to keep a gap for the downwind. After that I was pumped and I felt good.”
Aldridge, initially a dinghy sailor, was only introduced to the kite-foiling event – which made its Games debut – in 2018 as part of a potential identification programme compare by GB sailing chiefs to “Britain’s Got Talent”.
She admitted: “I didn’t even know if I was going to be any good at it but I felt it looked really cool.
“I could kite surf a bit before and I love fast racing and adrenaline sports where everything’s on the line so I thought I’d give it a go.
“But I did not ever think that this was going to happen.”
Aldridge’s success rescued the British team from a potential inquest just as they looked as if the only meal could be Emma Wilson’s windsurfing bronze.
GB’s last hope of a podium from one of the hulled craft went south BEFORE the first race of the day when John Gimson and Anna Burnet crossed the start line too early in their Nacra 17 catamaran.
The Brits, unaware of their transgression, were disqualified for not going back to take a penalty 260 degree turn, dropping them from third to fourth as their Italian training partners took gold.
Real-life couple Gimson and Burnet, who took silver in Tokyo, are getting hitched near her home in the west of Scotland next month.
Gimson said: “That’s the most brutal way to lose. One mistake has cost us everything.
“We heard the shout but we thought we were bang on the line. We didn’t realise or even think we were so we continued with the race.”
Burnet added: “It’s devastating, a bad dream. We thought it was the French so we carried on. That was a mistake, obviously.
“There’s life and there’s sport. At this moment the sport feels brutal. But life goes on and we’ll get married and life will be great.
“There’s no-one I’d rather be here with for this whole journey and we’re so lucky that we’ve got to do this together. The highs and lows, we’re riding together.”
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