One Person Heavyweight Dinghy (Finn), Men

Of the 2016 sailing events, the Finn has been on the Olympic program since 1952, longer than any other class. Since 2000 it had been always won by a British sailor, including three consecutive gold medals by Ben Ainslie. In 2016 Britain was represented by Giles Scott who was the strong favorite after three straight World Championships in this class and four in total. Ainslie and Scott are also sailing together on the 2017 America’s Cup team. Scott had a bad start with a 17th place in the first race, which was later to be his discarded score. In the following races, he had three first, two second and two third places. His best day was the 10th of August with races 3 and 4, which he finished second and first in very strong breezes and huge seas on an ocean course. Scott secured his gold medal after finishing the preliminary races with a total 32 points, and going into the medal race he led the second placed Slovenian Vasilij Žbogar by an unassailable 24 points. Žbogar held on to his silver medal position with a sixth place, defending a comfortable lead against Croatia’s Ivan Kljaković-Gašpić, America’s Caleb Paine and Sweden’s Max Salminen. The closest race was for the bronze medal, which was won by Paine. It was the only sailing medal for the US in Rio, and their first since 2008 after missing out completely in 2012. Kljaković-Gašpić lost his third place after a disappointing last place in the medal race.