Features

[ODDS and EVENS] Keiju Okada and Miho Yoshioka Sailing for Olympic Glory in Marseille

In mixed dinghy, a new Olympic sailing event, Japanese teammates Okada and Yoshioka are determined to continue their success on the global stage.

by
Ed Odeven
August 6, 2024

Teamwork is essential for success in sailing. And any time a sport, any sport, includes a trapeze as part of its equipment you are reminded of that required commitment.

One example is mixed dinghy, which is making its Olympic debut at the Paris Games. It is being held at Marseille Marina in Southern France, where Japan's Keiju Okada, at the helm, and Miho Yoshioka, crew member, are representing the nation. There are a total of 10 sailing events at the 2024 Olympic Games, including one other mixed gender event (mixed multihull).

Okada, a 28-year-old Kitakyushu native, competed at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. He placed seventh in the men's 470 sailing class. Yoshioka, a 33-year-old Hiroshima native, is back for her third Olympiad. She previously earned a fifth-place finish in the women's two-person dinghy event at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. After that, she took seventh in the women's 470 (dinghy) sailing competition at Tokyo 2020.

The Olympic Sailing Mixed Dinghy Event

Japan has never won an Olympic sailing gold medal.

Therefore, Okada and Yoshioka seek to write a new chapter in the nation's sailing history, doing so in this new Olympic racing event in France.

The medal race is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, August 7 (starting at 10:43 PM JST).

First, a quick primer: In the two-person 470 class event, the triple-digit number refers to the length of the boat (470 centimeters). And as Olympics.com explained in an article highlighting all of the Paris 2024 sailing races, a dinghy is "sailed with trapeze — a wire attached to a point high on the mast, that hooks on the crew's harness."

Success in Recent Years

Together, Okada and Yoshioka showcased their skills at the 2023 Allianz Sailing World Championships, held in The Hague, winning the mixed 470 (dinghy). They followed that up with a third-place finish in the race at the 2024 world championships in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

In addition, Japan's mixed dinghy sailing team has had solid results in the Olympic competition. (Through Sunday, August 4, there have been six races.) Team Japan got a win in the first race and back-to-back runner-up finishes in the next two. Okada and Yoshioka were third in the standings out of 19 sailing teams entering the seventh race on Monday. (Race 3 took 40 minutes and 30 seconds for the winning Swedish duo, Anton Dahlberg and Lovisa Karlsson, to complete the two laps on Saturday, August 3. Okada and Yoshioka were 4 seconds off the pace.)

To advance to the final, Okada and Yoshioka need to be in the top 10 in standings after race 9 on Tuesday.

A Love of the Water

Yoshioka recalled in a recent interview that she enjoyed visiting her grandmother, who resided near the Pacific Ocean. Because of these visits and her time as an Asahiya High School student in Hyogo Prefecture, she developed a love for the ocean.

"It wasn’t until I was 15 years old that I discovered sailing at school," Yoshioka told the World Sailing website. "I used to do volleyball and badminton but those are inside sports. I wanted to be surrounded by nature and the wind and the waves.

"The feeling of being outside and on the water for the first time was like nothing I had experienced before. I knew I wanted to keep sailing after that."

That's precisely what she's done. Practice and devotion to the sport have produced results.

For Yoshioka and Okada, this includes a triumph at the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, in September 2023. They also finished third at the 470 World Championships in Mallorca, Spain, in March 2024.

Lofty Ambitions for Paris 2024

Looking back at what he considered an important victory at the 2023 world championships, Okada said the Japan mixed dinghy team is focused on one thing in Marseille: winning.

"Winning the world championships last year has given Miho and I the confidence going into Paris that we can perform," Okada was quoted as saying by World Sailing in the run-up to the Olympics. "We want to get a gold medal in Marseille.

"I hope that people are inspired by us. Sailing is gaining more attention in the media. And the exposure of sailing to the people of Japan, especially, is much greater now than when I first started."

Author: Ed Odeven

Find Ed on JAPAN Forward's dedicated website, SportsLook. Follow his [Japan Sports Notebook] on Sundays, [Odds and Evens] during the week, and X (formerly Twitter) ＠ed_odeven.