Flamboyant Dutch windsurfer Kiran Badloe – hard to miss considering his distinctive blue arrow hairstyle – celebrated his RS:X class victory by throwing a flip into the waters of Enoshima Yacht Harbor.
Badloe and China’s Lu Yunxiu were the victors of sailing’s first Olympic gold medals awarded in 57 years at the 1964 Games legacy venue in Fujisawa City, south of Tokyo, on Saturday afternoon.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic windsurfing champions secured their victories adroitly navigating the Windward/Leeward course in the event’s closing ten-person medal races.
“This is this the highlight of my career so far,” said the 26-year-old gold medalist from the Netherlands. “I’ve won the last three world championships, but there is always something special about that Olympics. This is the cherry on the cake, it’s very special.”
Water conditions were relatively smooth and aided by sufficient winds, as competitors navigated downwind efficiently. Air temperatures approached 30 degrees Celsius with 75 percent humidity.
Poland’s Piotr Myszka elaborated upon the tricky wind conditions during Saturday’s races at the Enoshima Harbor venue.
“Today the wind changed direction - for the last three weeks during training it wasn’t like this, so it was quite unexpected, but in the last race it was a classic southerly wind, and quite windy, and so we were playing with it,” Myszka said. “But that’s sailing, you can never be 100% sure what it’s going to do.”
“The first two races were pretty similar, but then the wind switched to the east, and I enjoy the breeze and so having a bit more wind out there was pretty nice,” said Pedro Pascual of the United States.
Patricia Freitas of Brazil spoke about the challenging conditions that sailors navigating waters at the historic venue must be prepared for.
“It’s a really tricky place to sail – it’s my fifth time here, and I’ve had a lot of varied conditions, like typhoon weather, which is really awesome,” Freitas said. “It’s a drama for the people who live here because it’s stormy, but for sailing I love it. It’s fun. And harder, too, more challenging.
Silver medals in the RS:X classwent to French athletes Thomas Goyard of Charline Picon and bronze medals to China’s Bi Kun and Great Britain’s Emma Wilson.
The first sailing medals come on day six of competition of the Tokyo Games, as medals in six classes are still to be awarded, four of the classes (Laser, RS:X, 470 and 49er)by both men and women.
Competitors in the popular lifestyle sport ranged in age from 21-year-old Katy Spychakov of Israel to 38-yeaer-old Andreas Cariolou of Cyprus.
Although modified multiple times across ten Olympic Games, sailboarding dates to the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
It’s onward for sailing events as medals are at stake in both men’s and women’s one person dinghy on Sunday.
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