Two Person Dinghy (470), Men

The pre-Olympic favorites were the Croatian crew of Šime Fantela and Igor Marenić. After reasonable showings at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, placing 9th and 6th respectively, they came to Rio as the reigning 2016 world champions. They had been among the top 470 crews since 2009, when they won their first title, and over the following years added two silver and three bronze medals at the World Championships, as well as three gold and two bronze medals at the Europeans. In the preliminaries, Croatia was a class of its own. With two race wins and never placing worse than 6th (8th in the excluded score) they totaled only 27 points before the medal race. Also performing well were the boats from Australia and Greece. Panagiotis Mantis and Pavlos Kagialis went into the medal race with 38 points, two points ahead of Australia’s Mathew Belcher and Will Ryan. Australia had won the last two gold medals in the 470 class, with Belcher attempting to retain the 2012 gold he won with 2008 gold medalist Malcolm Page, who retired after the last Olympics. All other teams, including the 2008 and 2012 silver medalist Great Britain, were out of contention for a medal.

The men’s and women’s 470 finals had to be postponed by one day due to extremely low wind. In the medal race, the three leading crews disregarded all other boats just trying to control each other. Croatia won easily with an 8th place and won the country’s first ever sailing gold medal. Australia’s 9th place in a tight battle was just good enough to snatch silver from the Greeks with 58 points each but won thanks to their higher finish in the medal race.