Olympic gold sailor says he was struck by lightning, attacked by killer whales in six-month span

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Martin Kirketerp has lived the highest of the highs being an Olympic gold medalist, but he also lived out two nightmares earlier this year.

The Danish sailor said in a recent interview that he had been struck by lightning in January and then swarmed by orcas just six months later.

Kirketerp, who won gold in 2008 in Beijing, was competing at the SailGP event in Singapore as a grinder for ROCKWOOL Denmark. After the race, he was trying to help the New Zealand boat back to the harbor for the winning ceremony after their victory. But lightning struck the boat, and electricity was running through him.

“I’m just functioning as a human lightning conductor right there,” he said to Olympics.com.

“It was a very, very unpleasant experience, because it goes from zero to 100 in a split second. You just hope that it is ending soon and doesn’t accelerate further. You start asking yourself where you will be in a few seconds. I was scared while it was on, I’d like to admit that.”

Kirketerp said he’s been shocked plenty of times, as he’s “worked quite a bit as a handyman at home.” But “this is different.”

“You can feel it all the way down through the body. It’s a huge shock. It’s not because it’s so painful. You can really feel it, but it’s not like a pain. It’s more what goes on in your head,” he added. “You can just feel that it is tearing your whole body, and you are a little worried about what is happening. 

“The positive thing is that it only lasts a few seconds. When it’s over, you can very quickly feel that the ticker is still ticking. I was still there. It’s over in a flash, but while it’s on, it’s intense. I couldn’t feel my arm after. I had no contact with my arm at all, but at the time it didn’t matter.”

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One life-altering experience is good enough for, well, a lifetime. But Kirketerp had the “pleasure” of having two in such a short time frame. In June for another race came his visit from killer whales.

“We could see some big fins approaching in the horizon. A family of killer whales came to our boat – two adults and their baby – and they wanted to play with us a bit. We were mostly annoyed that now the racing stopped. We took down the sails and tried to lay still, and we could see our competitors sailing past us and around the killer whales.

“They came over to lay next to the rudder and gave it a good beating once in a while. They didn’t come with full force and smash into it, because then it would brake right away. But it is still a very large and heavy animal, so when they give a slap with the head to the rudder, the entire boat shakes. I was very afraid that the rudder would crack, but I wasn’t afraid of sinking.

“I’ve seen a lot of marine life out there, but I’ve never tried anything like this. It was a fantastic experience to see these large, majestic, impressive animals so close. But it would have been much cooler if they just came over and said hello, followed the boat for a bit, and then swam on.”

The water is scary, and Kirketerp knows all about it, but not scary enough to keep him away.

“I continue to do the things I do. We can all agree that the things we do at sea and in extreme sports involve some risk,” he said. “But the two episodes I have experienced here are outliers. None of this is standard. It’s not something that happens at every race.”