Paris 2024: Tita and Banti the dictators of Nacra 17, who are the two flying sailors who won the historic gold medal at the Olympics

Paris 2024: Tita and Banti the dictators of Nacra 17, who are the two flying sailors who won the historic gold medal at the Olympics

Olympic champions in Tokyo 2020 and now in Paris 2024 Ruggero Tita at the helm and Caterina Marianna Banti at the bow won a second gold medal at the Games in the Nacra 17 foil class, the flying catamaran designed for mixed crews. A page in the history of Italian sailing was written in the waters of Marseille as they are the first Italian sailors to win two Olympic golds. Not only two golds at the Olympics, but also four world championships, the last three consecutive (2022, 2023, 2024: the first was in 2018), the European title in 2022 and the second European place in 2023. They compete respectively for the Guardia di Finanza and for the Circolo Canottieri Aniene, he is from Civezzano in Trentino and she is from Rome.

Tita, born in 1992, and with her first sailing successes since the age of 13, joined the Olympic team in 2009; Banti, born in 1987, started on dinghies, especially the Laser, then discovered the magical world of multihulls on the Hobie Cat as a bowman, and then formed a stable pair on the Nacra foil with the Trentino financier. The Coni awarded them the Collare d’oro for sporting merit in 2018, 2021, 2022 and 2023: only this year’s is missing, booked from today.

Together with Vittorio Bissaro and Maelle Frascari, 2019 world champions, they are the Italian specialists of the Nacra 17, a boat designed for mixed crews to compete in: designed in 2011 by Gino Morrelli and Pete Melvin, designers specialized in the creation of high-performance boats, it made its debut with curved fins in Rio 2016, and then became foils for Tokyo 202.

5.25 meters long, 2.59 wide, it has a rotating carbon mast, a mainsail obviously battened and a self-tacking jib. The total sail area together with the gennaker and without counting the mast is 39.10 square meters which provide considerable power to a boat weighing just 141 kg.