The first athletes are already celebrating in the Olympic harbour. After the medal races for the RS:X surfers (YACHT online reported) and female surfers, in which France's Charline Picon came out on top in a thrilling final with six possible gold medallists and the Italian frontrunner Flavia Tartaglini dramatically fell to sixth place and came away empty-handed, top favourite Giles Scott has already secured gold before his medal race. As expected, the British Finn dinghy dominator of the past four years has taken over the role from Sir Ben Ainslie. The 29-year-old can no longer be denied Olympic victory in the final of the best ten Finn sailors. This means that the British America's Cup team Land Rover BAR is not only led by a four-time Olympic champion, but also tactically reinforced by an Olympic champion.
For the German national sailing team, the Olympic Sunday was a regatta experience of mixed emotions. After laser sailor Philipp Buhl, the young Kiel Nacra 17 crew Paul Kohlhoff/Carolina Werner also dropped out of the Olympic regatta with 13th place before the final. "We are very disappointed," said Carolina Werner after the Olympic premiere of the youngest team in the mixed catamaran fleet.
At the same time, the German 470 teams are fighting for a place among the top ten teams three races before their medal finals. Ferdinand Gerz (Munich) and Oliver Szymanski (Berlin) opened the day strongly with a race win, but then dropped back to 23rd place. 20 points separate the crew from a top ten place, which the sailors will be fighting for on Monday. Annika Bochmann and Marlene Steinherr found the wave of Olympic success at the same time and impressed with third and fifth place. However, because they also had to deal with a black day with a capsize and a broken mast, they are still in 14th place after seven races. The crew from the Seglerhaus am Wannsee club have three races left to successfully catch up and qualify for the medal race.
The sailors' greatest medal hopes continue to rest on the skiff teams, who took a break on Sunday and start their second half of the season on Monday. Berlin's Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel are in a strong second place after six races behind the New Zealand world champions, gold favourites and America's Cup stars Peter Burling and Blair Tuke. Victoria Jurczok and Anika Lorenz will start in eighth place on Monday.
