Paris 2024 Olympics: ILCA 6 sailor Zoe Thomson competitiveness a key to her success in Marseille

Cards, monopoly, putting up a tent. This Olympic debutant can’t help turning everything into a competition and it could be the secret of her success as she hunts breeze and history in Paris.

Zoe Thomson during a training session out form the Marseille Marina. Picture: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Sailor Zoe Thomson is so competitive that not that long ago she had to give herself a time out to cope with losing a game of cards with friends.

And while she’s now learnt how to be beaten better, she still doesn’t like it.

“My friends say I’m extremely competitive, even at Uno and Monopoly,’’ said Thomson, touted a chance of winning a medal on the Bay of Marseille in the single-handed ILCA 6 class now being raced in France.

“I can handle the losses now. I’ve learnt how to do it.

“But I still don’t like it and I turn even the smallest thing into a competition.

Zoe Thomson of Australia training off the Marseille marina. Picture: Phil Walter/Getty Images.

“Last Olympics, when I didn’t make the team I went off grid with friends and then it was all about who can put the tent up first.

“Card games were a big one. I got so annoyed with them I just went off and built a huge sandcastle one day all of my own.”

It’s this fierce competitiveness that could deliver Thomson a piece of history if she wins a gold in the ILCA 6 class in Marseille.

Zoe Thomson is racing at her debut Olympics.

DAY ONE WRAP

DAY TWO WRAP

DAY THREE WRAP

Despite Australia not sending women to Olympic Sailing prior to the 1988 Games in Seoul, they have an extraordinary history of success at the Games – in team events at least.

Belinda Stowell and Jenny Armstrong won gold in the 470 dinghy at the Sydney Olympics and four years later Elise Rechichi and Tessa Parkinson did the same in Beijing.

In 2012 in London Olivia Price and her crew in the women’s match racing picked up a silver and at the Rio Olympics in 2016 Lisa Darmanin and her cousin Jason Waterhouse won silver in the new Nacra class.

In Tokyo four years later, the pair fell just shy of the podium.

Now Thompson is hoping to become the first Australian woman to win a single-handed medal in the sailing arena at her debut games.

Originally published as Paris 2024 Olympics: ILCA 6 sailor Zoe Thomson competitiveness a key to her success in Marseille