One Person Dinghy (Laser), Men

The last four World Championships had been divided among Cypriot Pavloe Kontides (2017-18), the defending Olympic gold medallist Tom Burton of Australia (2019), and Philipp Buhl of Germany in 2020. Burton would not compete in Tokyo as Australia instead selected Matthew Wearn, who had been on the podium at all four World Championships since Rio, with a bronze in 2017 and silvers in 2018-20.

France’s Jean-Baptiste Bernaz won the opening race, with Finland’s Kaarle Tapper second, but Tapper finished second in race two to move into first place. Kontides won race four to move into the lead and increased it when he won the sixth race. On the fourth day the winds and the waves increased, and shifted from the south, playing into Wearn’s strengths, and he won race seven to take over and another victory in race eight moved him well ahead.

Entering the medal race, Wearn led comfortably over Norway’s Hermann Tomasgaard, with Croatian Tonči Stipanović in third. Bernaz won the medal race with Wearn second, which secured the gold medal. Stipanović placed fourth in the medal race but moved up to the silver medal when Tomasgaard finished only seventh. Kontides was close to the podium but his sixth-place finish in the medal race left him in fourth place.