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Team GB’s medal prospects in all of the sailing classes at Rio 2016 looked good from the start, but perhaps their greatest chance of a Gold Medal lies with Giles Scott in the Finn Dinghy class.
Labeled the Heavyweight Saling class, the Finn Dinghy is the largest and heaviest of all the monohull ships used at the Rio Olympics. GB have dominated the class with a Gold Medal at every Olympics since Athens 2000. Without doubt one of the greatest dinghy sailors this side of the millennium is Sir Ben Ainsley, the Briton was responsible for leading GB to their last three Olympic Golds in this class.
However, since his retirement after London 2012, it has opened the door for Giles Scott to claim the vacancy on Team GB. The Englishman has not been beaten since 2011 as is currently a four time Finn class world champion.
The Olympic Finn Class involves a 10 race preliminary stage followed by a Medal Race series. The athletes are awarded points equal to their finishing position in every race and the 10 sailors with the lowest point totals (having omitted their highest score) after 10 races go through to the Medal Race.
It wasn’t the best start for Giles, who came 17th in the opening race on Tuesday the ever changing wind directions made it hard to develop a race strategy. After a poor start, Scott decided to gamble by tacking early. A gamble which didn’t pay off as he found himself 11th at the windward mark. From there he never really recovered, slipping down the order to finish 17th.
However, the next race, that took place on Tuesday evening, was a great improvement as he finished 3rd, only 5.3 seconds behind the leader as opposed to over two minutes in the opening regatta. This finish meant he ended the day in 10th place.
Wednesday was a much better day for the Brit as he took second place in the first race of the day before taking his first win in the second race of the day. This left him 1st in the standings after day 2.
In day 3, Scott had another poor performance, finishing 11th in the opening race of the day at Marina Gloria. But in the Evening race, he further cemented his first place in the standings taking his second victory of the series.
After six races Scott looks in a comfortable position on 18 points, a full 12 points clear of Slovenia’s Zbogar. This means that with four races to go, he is almost a certainty for the final Medal Race series and looks in a very strong position to bring home another gold for Team GB.
