One Person Dinghy (Laser), Men

Tom Burton claimed the gold medal in the Laser for Australia for the second Games in a row following Tom Slingsby’s victory in 2012. After the ten preliminary races the field was led by Croatia’s Tonći Stipanović, whose ten-point margin assured him of at least a silver medal. In the medal race, Stipanović tried from the start to outrace Burton, his last remaining pursuer for gold. But he eventually finished at the back of the fleet in ninth place, which added another 18 points to his total. Burton sailed to a third place in the medal race and his six points gave him the top position and the gold medal, two points ahead of the Croatian. Nevertheless, Stipanović, who finished fourth at the London Olympics, won the first ever sailing medal for his country.

In the preliminaries, none of the boats in this close field managed to win two races. However, 43-year-old veteran Robert Scheidt of Brazil was first in the second preliminary race and also won the medal race. But some 20+ rankings dashed all his hopes to do better than fourth. In his six Olympic appearances since 1996, it was the first time Scheidt went home without a medal after two gold, two silver and one bronze. Sam Meech from New-Zealand, who was already third after the preliminaries, held on to the bronze medal position by placing fourth in the medal race.