Aug 02, 2021
In the exciting finals, Matt Wearn (AUS) won the gold in the Men’s One Person Dinghy while Anne-Marie Rindom (DEN) took the Women’s One Person Dinghy- Laser Radial gold.
RS:X: Women’s gold medal has gone for Yunxiu Lu and in the men’s category Kiran Badloe has won the gold.
The good weather returned to Enoshima on Sunday: sunshine and moderate wind accompanied the sailors who got back into racing for the Laser and Laser Radial medal races. In other disciplines, events had to be postponed due to bad weather.
The Australian sailor had already secured the gold medal, however different sailors had a chance to earn the silver and bronze. At the end, the silver medal went to Tonci Stipanovic (CRO) while Hermann Tomasgaard (NOR) took the bronze medal.
Jean-Baptise Bernaz (FRA) took the lead at the start of the race, however he was unlikely to win an Olympic medal. Hermann Tomasgaard sailed his way from eighth position to fifth, hoping to achieve the silver medal. However, Stipanovic fought back on the final lap and overtook Tomasgaard, moving into silver medal position.
With Matt Wearn’s gold medal Australia has already won three golds in a row for Australia. He follows on from Tom Slingsby at London 2012 and Tom Burton at Rio 2016.
In the Women’s One Person Dinghy - Anne-Marie Rindom won the gold medal while Josefin Olsson took silver and Marit Bouwmeester won bronze.
At the start, the individual recall flag went up as two boats were over: one of them was Marit Bouwmeester who had to return to start correctly, immediately putting herself back with the 10-boat fleet.
The other athlete who crossed before time was Silvia Zennaro (ITA). She did not return and was later on pulled out of the race at the first leg. Tuula Tenkanen (FIN) briefly moved into the medal zone, however Emma Plasschaert (BEL) moved from fourth into the lead, moving into the silver position.
Bouwmeester’s recovery was the most impressive, she went from being left last at the start to return into the silver medal position. However, Josefin Olsson climbed from seventh to third by the end of the first lap and went up to the lead by the final windward mark. She finished a fraction in front of Plasschaert.
In Rio 2016 Bouwmeester won gold and Rindom bronze. Now, the turns have turned and it’s the other way round. Bouwmeester has won her third Olympic medal, having also won silver at London 2012.
RS:X is a sailboarding class that enters the sailing disciplines at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. Yunxiu Lu of China has won in the Women’s Windsurfer at the Tokyo Olympics after a tense three-way battle in the medal race. Silver went to Charline Picon of France and Emma Wilson of Great Britain won the bronze.
In the men’s RS:X, Kiran Badloe of Netherlands won the Olympic gold title even before the Medal Race. Silver went to Thomas Goyard of France and bronze to Kun Bi of China.
At the start of the women’s medal race, China was showing a speed advantage in the light-wind conditions. However, the first mark advantage was for France, just five seconds ahead of China. At the end Picon crossed first, Great Britain second and China third. This was enough for Lu to win the gold.
In the men’s RS:X medal race, Mattia Camboni (ITA) made a great start but launched into an early lead. As he was unaware he broke the start too early he was disqualified and forced to leave the course. Piotr Myszka (POL) suffered the same result and was also pulled out of the course.
This cleared the way for Thomas Goyard (FRA) who secured the silver medal for France. However, towards the end of the first lap he was also pulled out of the race for having broken the start line early. He hoped his points towards the Medal race would be enough to win a medal.
Kun Bi managed to steal the bronze from Cohen (ISR) by a point. Badloe’s win in the Olympic RS:X Men’s is the third one in a row for the Netherlands. He has followed the footsteps of his friend Dorian van Rijsselberghe who took the gold in London 2012 and Rio 2016.