Australian sailors Mathew Belcher and Will Ryan have sailed to silver in a tense medal race at Marina da Gloria in Rio de Janeiro.
SAILING: Will Ryan spent a few perilous seconds in the drink at Rio’s Guanabara Bay but he and Matt Belcher recovered almost seamlessly to avoid disaster and claim a silver medal in Olympic sailing’s 470 class.
Belcher, guaranteed a bronze going into the medal race, couldn’t quite retain the title he won in London four years ago with Malcolm Page.
But he and new partner Ryan helped cap off an Olympic regatta which netted Australia’s sailors one gold medal and three silver.
“I just slipped and fell straight in,” said Ryan of the incident approaching the third mark.
“Fortunately Matt pulled me back out of the water one-handed pretty quickly and got me back into the boat and back into the race.”
For once in Olympic competition all of the action was at the rear of the field, with the medals ultimately going to the boats that finished in the last three places in the 10-nation final race.
Croatia finished eighth to claim gold, Australia ninth for silver and Greece 10th for bronze.
The Aussies, trailing Croatia by 13 points and Greece by two before the double-points final race, needed to be seven boats clear of Croatia to win an unlikely gold, or one boat ahead of Greece for the silver.
The jockeying between the three leading boats meant that all eyes were at the rear.
“We had two goals,” explained Belcher. “To try to win the race if we had the opportunity or to control the Greek boat. It didn’t really matter where we finished – we just had to be in front of Greece.
“It was quite entertaining at the back. When it became clear Croatia was in front (of us) we changed our strategy out on the water.”
The first thing he did on finishing was to race to the beach to see his two kids for the first time in a month.
The 33-year-old said the commitment to an Olympics was so great that he would take time out to decide whether to compete at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“We came here to win but to take silver was great,” said Belcher.
“We fought in good Aussie spirit and we can hold our heads high.”
Ryan added: “It’s hard to be disappointed with silver but the hunger is still there for more.”
Doug Conway
olympics.com.au
