Sailing at the 2016 Summer Olympics

Sailing at the Games of the XXXI Olympiad
Venues	Marina da Gloria
Dates	8–18 August 2016
No. of events	10
Competitors	381 from 68 nations

Sailing at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Qualification
Events
RS:X		men		women
Laser Radial				women
Laser		men
Finn		men
470		men		women
49erFX				women
49er		men
Nacra 17			mixed

Sailing at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro was held from 8–18 August at Marina da Gloria in Guanabara Bay. The sailing classes had two changes from the 2012 Summer Olympics events. There were 10 events.

News

Equipment and event changes

• The RS:X, Laser, Laser Radial, Finn, 470, and 49er all return for 2016.
• The keelboat discipline has been dropped meaning that both women's (Elliott 6m) and men's (the Star) are not part of the program. This is the first time the Olympics have not featured a keelboat.
• The multihull discipline has been reintroduced using the Nacra 17 since the Tornado was dropped for London 2012.
• In terms of gender a mixed gender event was introduced for the first time in Olympics Sailing. This follows to some degree the paralympic sailing competition which in 2008 introduced a two-person keelboat discipline in the Skud 18 with a requirement for at least one of the two person crew to be female. Tennis and Badminton are the other olympic sports with a mixed discipline.
• Women's skiff discipline has been added using the same equipment as the men's skiff discipline but with a slightly reduced sailplan 49erFX
• Kiteboarding was initially voted by the ISAF Council in May 2012 to replace windsurfing with kitesurfing and reaffirmed that vote on 9 November 2012.^[1] The move was controversial as former gold medalist and IOC member Barbara Kendall said she would challenge the decision and that "it’s exciting for kiteboarding but tragic for windsurfing. Kiteboarding really is a sport that should be at the X-Games." However, on 10 November 2012, the delegates at the International Sailing Federation’s General Assembly voted to keep windsurfing at the 2016 Olympic Games, overturning the ISAF Council's decision which had already been partially implemented within ISAF Events and Rankings.^[2]

Competition News

Following the announcement of the game water pollution became a hot topic, and a commitment to cleaning up the water was given by the hosts. This target was not fully achieved and water quality issues were frequently in the media.^[3][4][5] World Sailing examined various options including holding the racing fully outside the bay or even moving the event to Buzios.^[6] However, in the end only the Belgian sailor Evi Van Acker reported that her olympics were affected.^[7] The location for sailing events was a source of concern for athletes since scientists had found drug-resistant super bacteria in Guanabara Bay due to the daily dumping of hospital waste and household raw sewage into the rivers and ocean. The Brazilian federal government's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation lab also found the genes of super bacteria in a river that empties into Guanabara Bay.^[3][4]

Just before the games the launch ramp collapsed but no one was injured.^[8]

Competition format

Qualification

A total of 380 athletes competed in the sailing competitions of the Games. The qualification period began at the 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championships in September 2014. As hosts, Brazil was guaranteed one quota place in each of the ten events.^[9]

Classes (equipment)

Class	Type	Event	Sailors	Trapeze	Mainsail	Jib/Genoa	Spinnaker	First OG	Olympics so far
RS:X	Sailboard		1	-	+	-	-	2008	3
RS:X	Sailboard		1	-	+	-	-	2008	3
Laser Radial	Dinghy		1	-	+	-	-	2008	3
Laser	Dinghy		1	-	+	-	-	1996	6
Finn	Dinghy		1	-	+	–	–	1952	17
470	Dinghy		2	1	+	+	+	1988	8
470	Dinghy		2	1	+	+	+	1976	11
49er	Skiff		2	2	+	+	+	2000	5
49erFX	Skiff		2	2	+	+	+	2016	1
Nacra 17	Multihull	& Pair	2	2	+	+	+	2016	1

Scoring

Racing at the 2016 Olympics was fleet racing where all competitors started and sailed the course together. They were scored according to the low-point system, where first place is scored 1, second place is scored 2, etc. There was a series of preliminary races followed by the final Medal Race. The RS:X, 49er, 49erFX, and Nacra 17 classes had 12 preliminary races, other classes have 10.

At the end of the preliminary races, the top ten boats in each class (i.e. those with the lowest total scores) advanced to the Medal Race. Each boat might exclude one race from their total. The Medal Race could not be excluded from the series score and counts double. The boat with the lowest overall total after all races was the winner.^[10] Any ties in the final rankings were broken in favour of the competitor/crew finishing higher in the Medal Race.^[11]

Competition schedule

The competition started on 8 August and finished on 18 August.^[12]

Participation

Participating nations

Medal summary

Medal table

Key

  *   Host nation (Brazil)

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Great Britain	2	1	0	3
2	Netherlands	2	0	0	2
3	Australia	1	3	0	4
4	New Zealand	1	2	1	4
5	Croatia	1	1	0	2
6	France	1	0	2	3
7	Argentina	1	0	0	1
	Brazil*	1	0	0	1
9	China	0	1	0	1
	Ireland	0	1	0	1
	Slovenia	0	1	0	1
12	Denmark	0	0	2	2
13	Austria	0	0	1	1
	Germany	0	0	1	1
	Greece	0	0	1	1
	Russia	0	0	1	1
	United States	0	0	1	1
Total 17 NOCs		10	10	10	30

Men's events

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
RS:X	Dorian van Rijsselberghe  Netherlands	Nick Dempsey  Great Britain	Pierre Le Coq  France
Laser	Tom Burton  Australia	Tonči Stipanović  Croatia	Sam Meech  New Zealand
Finn	Giles Scott  Great Britain	Vasilij Žbogar  Slovenia	Caleb Paine  United States
470	Croatia (CRO) Šime Fantela Igor Marenić	Australia (AUS) Mathew Belcher William Ryan	Greece (GRE) Panagiotis Mantis Pavlos Kagialis
49er	New Zealand (NZL) Peter Burling Blair Tuke	Australia (AUS) Nathan Outteridge Iain Jensen	Germany (GER) Erik Heil Thomas Plößel

Women's events

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
RS:X	Charline Picon  France	Chen Peina  China	Stefania Elfutina  Russia
Laser Radial	Marit Bouwmeester  Netherlands	Annalise Murphy  Ireland	Anne-Marie Rindom  Denmark
470	Great Britain (GBR) Hannah Mills Saskia Clark	New Zealand (NZL) Jo Aleh Polly Powrie	France (FRA) Camille Lecointre Hélène Defrance
49erFX	Brazil (BRA) Martine Grael Kahena Kunze	New Zealand (NZL) Alex Maloney Molly Meech	Denmark (DEN) Jena Mai Hansen Katja Salskov-Iversen

Mixed events

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Nacra 17	Argentina (ARG) Santiago Lange Cecilia Carranza Saroli	Australia (AUS) Jason Waterhouse Lisa Darmanin	Austria (AUT) Thomas Zajac Tanja Frank

See also

• Sailing at the 2015 Pan American Games

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sailing at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

• Rio: Marina da Glória – Olympic and Paralympic Sailing Venue
• Rio 2016 Sailing venue
• ISAF : Official Site : Events : 2016 Rio Olympic Sailing Competition
• Serviço Meteorológico Esportivo - Weather forecast for sailing

Sailing at the Summer Olympics
	1896 1900 1904 1908 1912 1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016
List of medalists by discipline by class List of venues Scoring systems Classes

Olympic venues in sailing
1900: Meulan, Le Havre 1908: Ryde, Hunters Quay 1912: Nynäshamn 1920: Ostend, Buiten Y 1924: Le Havre, Meulan 1928: Buiten Y, Zuiderzee 1932: Los Angeles Harbor 1936: Kiel Bay 1948: Torbay 1952: Harmaja, Liuskasaari 1956: Port Phillip 1960: Gulf of Naples 1964: Enoshima 1968: Club de Yates 1972: Bay of Kiel 1976: Portsmouth Olympic Harbour 1980: Olympic Regatta in Tallinn 1984: Long Beach Shoreline Marina 1988: Busan Yachting Center 1992: Olympic Harbour 1996: Wassaw Sound 2000: Rushcutters Bay 2004: Agios Kosmas Olympic Sailing Centre 2008: Qingdao International Sailing Centre 2012: Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy 2016: Marina da Glória 2020: Enoshima