Windsurfer (Neil Pryde RS:X), Men

The Mistral class had been the windsurfing board chosen for the 1996-2004 Olympics, but it was replaced in 2008 by the Neil Pryde RS:X class for both men and women. The RS:X has a daggerboard and is somewhat heavier than the previous Olympic class windsurfing boards. Neil Pryde is the head of a Hong Kong-based sports manufacturing company, named eponymically as NeilPryde, Ltd.

Going into the medal race, France’s Julien Bontemps had a meager one-point lead over New Zealander Tom Ashley, who earlier in 2008 had won the World Championship in this class. In the medal race, Bontemps dropped his sail early on and had to scramble just to move up to fourth, but that was one spot behind Ashley, and moved Ashley up to the gold medal. Israeli Shahar Zubari was second in the medal race, won by Hong Kong China’s King Yin Chan, putting Zubari on the podium with a bronze medal.