Gold. Silver and Jib Only Racing in Rio!

Gold in the Laser. Silver in the Nacra 17!
It's been an action packed week in Rio to say the least, with Olympic Sailing teams struggling with the most widely varied conditions ever seen in an Olympic venue.

First it was light, then it went offshore. Later this week, racing was called off along with the TV coverage; and to top off the second last day, racers were hit with an almighty storm!

Pictures below from ISAF show the result, with the 470's having no choice but to drop their mainsails and sail home on jibs alone. It was so windy, that some even had to get out on trapeze! With racing called off for the day, sailors had only one day left to make their claim on a medal, and our Aussie sailors did us proud.

Tom Burton in the Laser, took Gold from Croatian rival Ton?i Stipanovi? after going after him for a penalty, but almost had his medal potentially taken away from him! Sailing towards his friends and family on the beach, had Tom have jumped off his Laser he would be in breach of the drug testing rules, which require sailors to head straight back to the club for a drug test. Luckily, officials stopped him in time, and the celebrations were put off until later.

In Nacra 17's, the Olympics newest class, Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin took Silver in an agonising battle between Argentina and New Zealand. With only one point in it, Argentina held on to their gold medal by making a gamble to cross the course off the start line, with New Zealand taking line honours to secure fourth place and Austria actually ties for points with the Aussies, taking Bronze due to the scoring system.

Congratulations to all the Aussie sailors who did us proud at the 2016 Rio Olympics! With a bright future for competitive sailing, we're looking forward to 2020 in Tokyo...