On Sunday morning, 28 July, in the Grand Palais on the edge of the Seine River, the men’s Athlete Briefing and Pontoon Draw took place to decide the starting spots for the 55 men going for gold at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

First to pick was French medal hope Leo Bergere as number one in the Olympic Rankings, his slot along with those of the next nine athletes kept hidden until all ten were revealed after the remaining had been chosen, continuing in ranking order.

Nine of those ten opted to take up the middle-right region for the shortest line to the buoy and potentially the strongest current. The three French men Dorian Coninx, Pierre Le Corre and Leo Bergere will line up side-by-side at numbers 223, 23 and 24, defending champion Kristian Blummenfelt (NOR) and Miguel Hidalgo (BRA) either side of them. Matthew Hauser opted to go further right into this ‘lucky’ number ten spot.

Britain’s Alex Yee and New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde are numbers 27 and 30 respectively, separated by Vasco Vilaca (POR) and Jelle Geens (BEL).  The USA duo Morgan Pearson and Seth Rider will be together in slots 41 and 42, Samuel Dickinson (GBR) and Jamie Riddle (RSA) are together in 46 and 47. Diego Moya chose the far left of the pontoon in number 55, Henri Shoeman is far right on number 3.

“21 Is in the centre of the first gap under the bridge and it looks like the current is strongest, so I thought that’s where the other top guys would go and that’s what I saw when I found the three French guys next to me,” said the defending champion Kristian Blummenfelt.

“We didn’t talk, that’s funny! We didn’t try to be together but all had the same information and wanted to be straight to the first buoy so I think it’s a good direct line,” said Pierre Le Corre.

“I had a little conversation and I just wanted to be slightly over the central area over the arch and slightly to the inside, hopefully it works out well!” said Alex Yee.

The men go out at 10.45am on Wednesday 31 July. Check local listings for how to watch live.