Windsurfer (Neil Pryde RS:X), Men

Arguably, this was the only event at the Tokyo Olympics decided in 2020. On 29 February, in the Gulf of Naples, host to the 1960 Olympic sailing races, the medal race of the 2020 RS:X World Championships was held. Apart from the world title, two friends and rivals also battled for an Olympic qualification: Dorian van Rijsselberghe and Kiran Badloe. Since Olympic sailing classes only allow a single entry per country, these two Dutch surfers had to beat the other in a combined ranking of the 2018, 2019 and 2020 World Championships in order to qualify for Tokyo. The two-time defending Olympic champion, Van Rijsselberghe, had won the 2018 title (with Badloe second). A year later, Badloe edged out his training companion, the two again finishing 1-2. The 2020 edition proved equally close. Going into the medal race, Badloe held a 10 points lead. Van Rijsselberghe gave it his all, and won the medal race. He needed to place five spots ahead of his compatriot to win the title, but Badloe came in fifth, thus narrowly retaining his title, and earning Olympic qualification. Disappointed, but happy for his friend, Van Rijsselberge then decided to retire from the sport.

Of course, Badloe still needed to actually win at Enoshima. But having also added the 2021 World and European titles to his prize cabinet, he was the obvious favorite. Naturally, there were plenty of contenders, including from traditionally strong surfing nations like France (Thomas Goyard), Italy (Mattia Gamboni), Poland (Piotr Myszka) or Great Britain (Tom Squires).

Light winds at the first competition day gave the early advantage to lightweight sailors like Mateo Sanz Lanz, who won the first two races. Badloe seemed to overtake the lead with three straight victories then, but his win in the fifth race was annulled after an Italian protest led to his disqualification for that race. This put Goyard in first, but Badloe continued strongly, taking wins in race 9, 11, and 12. With only the medal race to go, this made him all but Olympic champion; only a disqualification in the final race would cost him the gold.

Badloe sailed his medal race carefully to avoid this fate, but other medal contenders were not so cautious. The start saw three boats on course side of the starting line (a false start), and Goyard (second after 12 races), Camboni (third) and Myszka (fourth) were all forced to view the race from the sideline. Goyard was lucky to hold on to the silver medal despite his mishap, but both the Italian and the Pole dropped out of medal contention. China’s Bi Kun was happy to pick up the final open medal position.

Kiran Badloe, who had sailed with a blue arrow painted into his hair in reference of cartoon character Aang (from Avatar: The Last Airbender), went into the record books as the last Olympic champion in the RS:X class. On 1 November 2019, World Sailing had elected to replace the class - in Olympic use since 2008 - when it replaced the Mistral with the iQFoil. Badloe needn’t worry, though, as in 2020, he also won the inaugural European Championships in that class.