The first time Jonathan Lobert dreamed of greatness, of the possibility of one day winning an Olympic medal, was back in 2000. “I was just a kid when I was watching the Sydney Olympic Games on TV. I saw Ben Ainslie win his gold medal in the Laser and I realised maybe I might have the chance one day winning a medal in sailing.”
Fast forward 12 years to London 2012, and Ben Ainslie was competing at his fifth and final Games, this time in the Finn. The French representative was none other than Jonathan Lobert, and going into the Medal Race he had a shot at a medal. The man who had inspired him to reach this moment, Ainslie, walked up to the young Frenchman before the final race, and said to him: “If you just do what you usually do you will be fine, and we will be together on the podium.” Those words made quite an impression on Lobert, competing at his first Games. “It was interesting to see how much pressure Ben must have been under; he was still in silver medal position with a lot to do that day, yet he found the time to offer those kind words to me. That was very impressive for me.”
It was one memorable Medal Race that sunny day in Weymouth. The medals remained in doubt until the very end, as pretty much all 10 boats converged on a congested final turning mark before the finish. Lobert recalls his mindset before the race: “When I went on the water I was fully motivated, pushing as much as I could and wanted to go home with no regrets. I was leading most of the Medal Race but towards the end, PJ Postma came from a long way back and he caught a nice shift and I saw that I was out of the medals at this stage. PJ was pushing to overtake the Kiwi sailor Dan Slater but he pushed too far.”
The Dutchman was forced to take a penalty, after his all-or-nothing bid for the gold ended up dropping him out of the medals altogether. Ben Ainslie had somehow grabbed gold out of the final melée, Jonas Hoegh Christensen took silver after a stellar week for the Dane, and Lobert clinched the bronze, although had a lot of sympathy for Postma. “I like PJ, he puts it all on the line. He is a full-on sailor and I admire that attitude.”
That do-or-die Finn Medal Race in 2012 is not so very different from the attitude required to compete in the winner-takes-all final race of the Star Sailors League Finals, an event in which Lobert has twice competed. “Both times have been a very good experience. I really enjoyed the format and the regatta, and it was such a good fun to just go there, sail with those fantastic sailors and the racing was amazing.
“My first time, I sailed with Pascal Rambeau, a Star expert and medallist, and actually I didn't need to understand much because he was doing most of it onboard. I was a bit lost in the boat and really needed someone to tell me what to do. The second time I chose to go with my Finn teammate Fabian Pic; so we were total beginners, and it was good fun because we had to learn a lot about how to rig the boat first and then trim it and also how to do the manoeuvres and stuff. At the end of the week, we weren’t doing too bad, but it was a big learning curve.”
Now aged 33, Lobert is fully focused on winning another Olympic medal at Tokyo 2020 after a disappointing performance at Rio 2016. The lesson from that cycle was that it is possible to work too hard, to want something too much. “My mistake was maybe training too hard. I became a dad one year before the Games, and I didn't sleep much. It was hard to pushing extra during the Games, mentally and physically. I was so exhausted the six months before - I didn't realise I needed a break. You can work too hard. When you really want something you need to take a break, so you can come back with full power.”
Finishing runner-up at the 2017 World Championships in Hungary suggests Lobert is on the right track, and there’s another opportunity to gauge progress at the 2018 Worlds in Aarhus in the next two weeks. He is looking forward to Tokyo 2020, and has enjoyed the time he’s spent in Japan so far. “We were there for three weeks and we had amazing conditions, big waves and big wind; I hope we get that for the Games.”
Lobert hasn’t yet assessed whether he’ll carry on beyond Tokyo, although the pull of competing on home waters for Paris 2024 is certainly a big one, even if he will be almost 40 years old by then. “During Rio, I was sitting close to Robert Scheidt and we were both watching the TV, seeing Martine Grael win her gold medal in the 49erFX. I could see he was very touched by her victory, to win on home waters. Unfortunately Robert didn't manage that for himself, but I could see how much it meant to him to see Martine win. It would be something very important for me to go to Marseille if I had the chance.”
The other factor is whether or not the Finn will still be an Olympic class by 2024, especially after the big discussion about the future of the Olympic regatta at World Sailing’s Mid-Year Meeting back in May. If the Finn is to be a part of the Games, it looks like it will as part of a new event called ‘Mixed Singlehander’, where little is known about the format other than it will involve a man and a woman competing as one team for their country. Lobert is not impressed: “I don't understand this mixed single event, for me it means nothing. It's a bit weird.
“There are already some mixed events in sailing like the Nacra, and it's OK for me they are doing it together on the same boat. But in different boats? And then the guys [the Council of World Sailing] are coming to us, ‘You have to be creative.’ I don't understand. I mean they come to the Finn class after making a decision and said we have to be creative and find a good format. They made a decision, and when you make a decision you must have a vision of something. So we have to find a way to make it work. But for me it's a bit strange, to put something in the Olympic Games that doesn't exist.
“To be honest, I don't how it would work. It could be more like a relay race. I mean that's fine for a second medal, but you cannot build all your campaign on the relay. You train so hard on your side to be able to medal and then somebody else is finishing it off. That's weird. In swimming, they do their own race and then they are super happy to do the relay, because it's something extra. We have a super good Turkish sailor in the Finn, but he has no girls to sail with. This guy will be out. We have a good Brazilian sailor.... there are many examples.”
Lobert remains hopeful that a sensible solution will be found, and one that can accommodate someone who is 1.95m tall and a lean 99kg. “Of course, it would be a great challenge to race in my own country [at the 2024 Games], but for now we still have to wait so if we there will be boats that could suit my size, because there is no chance for me to drop 20 kilos to go back in the Laser. For me, the Finn is the only option.”
by Andy Rice - SailingIntelligence
SSL Press Officer since 2015