One Person Dinghy (Laser Radial), Women

Like in the men’s event, the ten preliminary women’s Laser Radial races had ten different winners. Britain’s Alison Young won the medal race, in addition to the tenth preliminary race, but she had acquired too many points previously to have any chance of a podium finish. Eventually, it was the 2012 silver medalist Marit Bouwmeester of the Netherlands, who took gold. She was certainly the most successful sailor in her class with World Championship gold in 2011 and 2014 and a silver in 2010 and 2015. Shortly after her victory in Rio, Bouwmeester claimed her third world title. In the medal race she had to control Denmark’s Anne-Marie Rindom and Ireland’s Annalise Murphy to hold on to her comfortable lead after the preliminaries. A seventh place in the medal race was good enough for gold. Rindom lost her second position after a disappointing eighth place in the medal race and had to be content with bronze. With a fifth place, Murphy had the best result of the leading trio in the medal race and edged out Rindom for silver.

The 2012 gold and bronze medalists were less fortunate. Belgium’s Evi Van Acker claimed to have contracted a gastric disease while training, probably from the pollution in Guanabara Bay - the only reported case of infection during the Rio regatta. PR China’s Xu Lijia, who had survived bone cancer before winning Olympic medals in 2008 (bronze) and 2012 (gold), didn’t reach the medal race following disqualification in three of the preliminary races. Without the disqualifications, for interference and contact with other boats, she would have been on top of the table after the preliminaries.