Double Olympic champion and Brazilian national Martine Grael has named driver of Brazil and will join the starting line of the 2024/25 Season opener in Dubai this November. But who is Martine Grael and how did her career lead her to SailGP?
Born and raised in Niterói - a municipality in Rio de Janeiro, Grael hails from a family of sailors - she is the daughter of Olympic gold medallist Torben Grael, and her brother Marco and uncle Lars have also competed in the Olympics.
Grael developed a competitive nature early on, going head to head with her brother while sailing on Guanabara Bay where, Grael says, the ‘diverse wind patterns’ create ‘sharp and adaptable’ sailors.
As she grew more confident on the water, Grael voiced her desire to compete - first in the 420 dinghy before teaming up with Kahena Kunze (who previously raced with Germany in Season 4) in the 49er FX.
After winning the ISAF Sailing World Championships in 2014, the pair turned their attention to the 2016 Rio Olympics, beating New Zealand and Denmark to secure Olympic gold at home.
After the Olympics, Grael turned her attention to offshore racing - joining Team AkzoNobel alongside ROCKWOOL DEN driver Nicolai Sehested for the duration of the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race.
Together, Sehested and Grael covered 45,000 nautical miles during nine months of grueling racing and were both on board when the team set a new 24-hour speed record across the Atlantic Ocean - covering 600.1 nautical miles over a 24 hour period, at an average speed of 46.3 km/h.
After the Volvo Ocean Race, Grael launched another Olympic campaign with Kunzek, taking home a second Olympic gold and the 2020 (2021) Tokyo Olympics - beating Germany and the Netherlands in the process.
She recently took part in her third Olympic Games at Paris 2024 with Kunze - though the pair didn’t podium. With the Games complete, Grael's focus is on the looming fifth season of SailGP, which will mark the debut of the Brazilian team.
The first ever female driver in the league, Grael will lead Brazil over the start line at the season opener in Dubai this November.
While the prospect of entering the league gives her ‘butterflies in the stomach’, Grael is ready for the challenge, hoping for the ‘steepest learning curve’ when racing gets underway.
Ultimately, she says, her goal will be to ‘deliver a strong performance’ and reach a ‘level of excellence acceptable’ to herself.
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