Olympic Sailing News - 18 August 2016

Although there were four Medal Races today, perhaps the final race of the Rio 2016 Olympic Sailing Competition gave a poetic, if not tense ending, fitting of a fantastic event.    Earlier in the day Great Britain’s Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark made it through the Women’s 470 Medal Race with no penalties to confirm the gold medal they had leading in to it. New Zealand’s Peter Burling and Blair Tuke finished the only way they know how, with a Medal Race win and gold. Sime Fantela and Igor Marenic got the first sailing gold medal for Croatia in the Men’s 470. But it was the Women’s 49erFX where Rio 2016 really signed off with a bang for the sailing.

In the most open class, four countries went in to the Medal Race all on essentially the same points due to the double points. Whoever finished first won gold. It was close, so close. Two seconds in fact. But the winners, Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze of Brazil, of Rio in fact, brought the curtain down on racing to, as you can imagine, a lot of fanfare and celebration.

As friends and family joined them in the water to celebrate, it took some time to get back ashore. When they finally got back, Grael and Kunze were carried aloft on the 49erFX that took them to glory. Brazil had won gold, in the final race, on the final day.

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