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Junior Harvard sailor Sophia Montgomery will represent Thailand at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics after securing a fourth place finish at the Asian Sailing Championships earlier this month.

Montgomery qualified for the 2024 Games during the final race of the competition on Dec. 19, becoming the first Harvard sailor to punch a ticket to the Olympics in more than 30 years.

“I'm very proud to have qualified the country for the Olympics,” Montgomery said in an interview with The Crimson.

“I’m very happy,” she added. “Over the moon.”

The Olympic sailing races will take place from July 28 to August 8 in Marseille.

Montgomery said that her victory “hasn’t really sunk in yet,” but that she is “very thankful for all the support.”

This race was particularly special for Montgomery, who hails from Bangkok and took a semester off college to train in Thailand for the contest.

The Asian Sailing Championships were held at the Royal Varuna Yacht Club in her native Thailand, allowing Montgomery to qualify for the Olympics on her home turf, the starting spot of her sailing journey.

“I learned how to sail here at eight years old and grew up here,” she said. “My first ever race and prize was here.”

“It was the Santa Race, which used to be held annually just for the juniors,” Montgomery recalled. “I don't think I managed to finish a single race, but I won the first girl because I was the only girl.”

Montgomery’s fourth place result also demonstrated her tactical shrewdness, as the Harvard junior intentionally missed out on a medal to qualify Thailand for the Olympics.

While she started out the final race of the competition in podium position, Montgomery said that her only goal was to qualify her nation for the Olympics, meaning that Thailand had to be one of the top two nations on the leaderboard.

Montgomery was in third place heading into the medal race, but first, second, and fourth were all occupied by sailors representing China.

Montgomery said her plan was to follow India’s Nethra Kumanan “so that I finish close to her and she can’t create a gap.”

“The next nation able to take the Olympic ticket was India, who was in fifth and 12 points behind me,” Montgomery added. “She had to put at least seven boats in between us to win the ticket, so my strategy was to just stay with her during the race.”

As Montgomery predicted, Kumanan and the Chinese sailors split from each other during the race, with Kumanan going to the right and the Chinese sailors to the left.

With her theoretical strategy now reality, Montgomery had to choose mid-race between a spot on the podium and Olympic qualification.

“I knew that by splitting with the Chinese, I'd probably lose the podium,” Montgomery said. “But if I split with Nethra and she was able to come back from the right, I'd lose the Olympic ticket.”

In the end, Montgomery opted to play it safe and follow Kumanan.

“I ended up losing the podium, but it was worth it,” Montgomery said. “Playing for the podium risked the ticket too much.”

— Staff writer Thomas Harris can be reached at thomas.harris@thecrimson.com.