Emmanuelle Rol (born 6 August 1986) is a Swiss-born French former sailor, who specialized in the two-person dinghy (470) class.[1] Together with her partner Anne-Sophie Thilo, she was named one of the country's top sailors in the double-handed dinghy for the 2008 Summer Olympics, finishing in a lowly seventeenth place.[2] Outside her Olympic career, she collected a total of two medals (a gold and a silver) under each different banner at the European Championships (2008 and 2010).[3] A member of her native Pully's local sailing club (French: Club Nautique de Pully), Rol trained most of her sporting career under the federation's head coach for 470, French-born Nicolas Novara.[4]
Rol competed for the Swiss sailing squad, as a skipper in the women's 470 class, at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. She and crew member Thilo topped the Swiss Sailing Federation's selection criteria for a coveted spot on the Olympic team, based on their cumulative scores attained in a series of international regattas, including their runner-up finish at the Europeans a few months earlier.[3][5] The Swiss duo seized their advantage at the initial half of the series by taking the top-ten spots each in races 2 to 4, but a series of unanticipated technical errors towards the final legs pushed both Rol and Thilo to the near end of the fleet, sitting them in a lowly seventeenth overall with 114 net points.[2][6]
Shortly after the Games, the Swiss duo announced their split from 470.[2] When she competed for France two years later, Rol and her new partner Hélène Defrance collected their composure and then sailed victoriously ahead of their chief medal rivals for a golden finish at the Europeans in Istanbul, Turkey.[7]
