A pair of medals were given out Tuesday in the RS:X classification of sailing races, with Great Britain adding to a silver to its Olympics-leading tally of four medals in only seven events contested thus far.
Dorian van Rijsselberge, Marina Neira Win Sailing Golds In RS-X
Dorian Van Rijsselberge had already won gold in the event with two races to go: The fleet scoring system, which awards points to finishes in 10 qualification races and one medal race, meant that Van Rijsselberge could finish in dead last in the 10th race as well as the medal race, so he didn’t even finish the 10th race. “I started, and then I felt I was in the way of the other guys so I made the decision to help out my fellow competitors,“ he said, before placing second in the medal race. The race he didn’t finish was the only one in which he placed worse than third. Great Britain’s Nick Dempsey earned silver.
Although Spain’s Marina Alabau Neira didn’t quite have enough advantage on her competition to do nothing, she had a comfortable lead in points heading into the medal race. She didn’t dog it at all, though, winning the final by 27 seconds to cement her gold.
The real drama was in the fight for silver and bronze, as three racers were barely separated from each other in second through fourth places. Ukraine’s Olha Maslivets and Poland’s Zofia Noceti-Klepacka tried their best, finishing second and third, but each could have felt much better about themselves with an extra spot in the final race, worth two points: Maslivets missed bronze by a point while Noceti-Klepacka missed silver by one as well. Meanwhile, Finland’s Tuuli Petaja could be content with a fourth-place finish in the final race as she earned silver in the overall standings.
Here’s the results from the morning’s races:
Men’s RS-X
Gold: Dorian Van Rijsselberge, Netherlands
Silver: Nick Dempsey, Great Britain
Bronze: Przemyslaw Miarczynski, Poland
Women’s RS-X
Gold: Marina Alabau Neira, Spain
Silver: Tuuli Petaja, Finland
Bronze: Zofia Noceti-Klepacka, Poland
For more on the Olympics, check out SB Nation’s London 2012 Olympics Hub.
See More:
