In Formula 1 of the sailing, Anna Barth specifies the course with only 20 years of experienced “seaside bear”. The North German has big goals.
It will be more than two years until the next Summer Olympics. In Los Angeles, more than 10,000 athletes will fight for medals.
One of them also wants to be Anna Barth. The 20-year-old is considered the largest sailing talent in Germany. Shortly after graduation, she hired in 2023 as the strategy of the German team in the SailGP series. The competition is considered “Formula 1 on the water” and Barth’s team belongs to the four-time F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel, who regularly gives the native of Hamburg (read more about this here).
In addition to success in high-speed sailing, Barth has a dream: the games 2028. There, the reigning U21 world champion of the 49-FX class wants to be very high.
“We definitely attack. My sailing partner Emma Kohlhoff is currently 17 years old and still at school until 2027 and I am now doing Sailgp and Olympic sailing in parallel,” says Barth in conversation with T-Online and pushes the major event in three years directly: “But we focus on this and want to achieve really big in the Olympic fx.
When looking at the previous success of the young sailing duo, this is no wonder: Barth and Kohlhoff won the U21 World Cup for the second time in Vilagarcía in Spanish in Vilagarcía.
For this they were elected third place in the election as athlete and athlete in Schleswig-Holstein in the “Team of the Year” category-behind the footballers of Holstein Kiel and the handball players of SG Flensburg-Handewitt.
In the 2028 games, the duo from the Kiel Yacht Club 23 and 19 years old-an age in which many other ambitious athletes do not even dare to take the Olympic participation.
Does sailing often occur to be so good at such a young age? “Yes, every now and then,” explains Barth, adding: “Sailing is an experience sport and the more experience you have, the better the cards are – but we go full throttle. We try to do everything we can do. And if it is not enough in 2028, we are in 2032.”
At the German Sailor Association, which last remained without a medal at the Olympic Games in Paris, this should certainly arouse some hopes.