One Person Heavyweight Dinghy (Finn), Men

The defending champion was Britain’s Giles Scott. He had dominated this class from 2011-16, winning four Finn World Cups, but had not won a World medal since that time. He had been the 2019 European Champion, however, and won a silver medal at the 2020 Europeans. The last three World Cups had been won by Max Salminen (SWE/2017), Zsombor Berecz (HUN/2018), and Josh Junior (NZL/2019), who had all competed at Rio de Janeiro in 2016, but none of them had made the podium.

The first two races were won by Turkish sailor Alican Kaynar, with the podium identical as Berecz finished second and Spain’s Joan Cardona was third in both phases. Scott was ninth in both the races and stood ninth entering the third race. He then reeled off three straight victories, but still stood only second behind Cardona, as Kaynar dropped back and was never again a factor in the medal race. Scott also won the sixth race to finally move into the lead. After Junior won the seventh phase, Scott won races eight and nine to separate himself from the field, but the gold medal was still in play entering the medal race, with Berecz second and Cardona third. Berecz won the medal race, with Scott fourth, but it was enough to bring Scott the gold medal as Berecz took silver and Cardona won bronze.

The Finn World Cup was held later in the summer and was won by New Zealand’s Andy Maloney, who had not competed at Tokyo, as New Zealand was represented by Junior. At that event Cardona took silver and Junior claimed the bronze.

The Finn class, a heavyweight single-handed dinghy, had been contested at the Olympics since 1952 when Danish legend Paul Elvstrøm won the second of his four consecutive gold medals in single-handed sailing. But the Tokyo Games would be the last appearance for the Finn class at the Olympics, as it was eliminated from the programme for the Paris 2024 Olympics, in favor of a mixed two-handed class for complete gender equity of the Olympic sailing programme. For Scott, his second consecutive gold medal was the first time anyone had defended in the Finn class since Elvstrøm.