Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti retained their Olympic title in the Mixed Multihull with a dazzling display in Marseille.
The Italian crew picked up the gold medal in Tokyo and looked set to replicate that feat in France, winning half the races that took place in the Opening Series. Heading into the Medal Race, Tita and Banti had at least a silver locked up, but they wanted more and duly earnt their prize, finishing second in the finale.
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Argentina’s Mateo Majdalani and Eugenia Bosco were the primary challengers and were the only crew capable of taking gold from the Italians. They placed seventh in the Medal Race which meant they settled for a superb silver in the Nacra 17 class.
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Great Britain’s John Gimson and Anna Burnet started the day in third, but a penalty at the start line hindered them and gave New Zealand’s Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson the opening to finish in front. The Kiwis eventually came eighth in the Medal Race, which was enough to take the bronze.
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Tita said: “We said to each other before starting this cycle that winning the second one is going to be much harder than winning the first one. We are proud of what we achieved during this period.
“It’s all about the work that we put in together over three years and the three World Championships won. We are happy, but we knew it was going to be hard to win it again.”
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Banti said: “It was really light wind, but this is sailing, it’s how the game is.”
Majdalani said: “I think if you told us that we’d go into the Medal Race in second place we’d take it, so we are really, really happy.”
Wilkinson said: “This wasn’t our best race, but at the end of the day we stayed in it long enough to pull it off. It feels amazing.”
Dawson said: “We’re so proud of how we sailed and we feel like a lot of hard work has gone into it. It all came together at the right time for us, we put a lot of focus on being an all-round team and being good in all conditions and I feel like we achieved that.”
How it works:
Medals for the Mixed Multihull (Nacra 17) be decided by the cumulative results of the 19-strong fleet over 12 races. The boat with the lowest total will rank first. Athletes will be able to discard their worst finishing position after they’ve completed three races.
At the end of the Opening Series, the top ten boats in the fleet will qualify for the Medal Race, which is worth double points. The score in the Medal Race cannot be discarded. The crew with the smallest overall points total will win gold.
