Smiles for the iQFOiL and kite Azzurri at the World Championships: full house of Olympic cards for Italia Team

Four Italian crews won their quotas for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris on the third-to-last day of the Sailing World Championships held in the Dutch waters of The Hague.

Nicolò Renna (photo Marta Orsini/FIV) and Marta Maggetti gained access to the Medal Race with first and fourth place finishes in the men’s and women's iQFOiL respectively, earning one of the 11 Olympic quotas reserved for each gender.

Good news also from kite, where the very young Riccardo Pianosi passed the preliminary phase in third place, securing one of the Olympic passes guaranteed to the top eight by gender. 

Fifteenth place, meanwhile, went to Maggie Eillen Pescetto in the women’s competition. Although she missed out on the Medal Race, she secured a valuable national place for Italy at Paris 2024. The decisive factor proved to be the presence of two French athletes (out of the competition given the passes assigned to the host country) ahead of her and several rivals belonging to the same NOC (each Olympic Committee can only qualify one crew for each sailing class). 

This takes the tally of Italian crews qualified for Paris 2024 to five after Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti won a quota in Nacra 17, where they finished by taking the gold medal in style.