Tom Slingsby redeems himself after Beijing disaster

As Pavlos Kontides wins Cyprus' first ever Olypmic medal after today's Laser medal race

Four years after he went into Beijing the favourite to win Laser gold, only to go home without even making it to the medal race, so Tom Slingsby today righted the history books to win the first of what could be as many as four sailing Golds of this Olympic Games for Australia.

Unlike the medal races for the Star and Finn where the positions going in were less definitive, in today’s Laser medal race there were two clear-cut match races going on. Slingsby and Pavlos Kontides were the only sailors in the running for gold and silver, with the Australian a useful, but by no means decisive, 14 points ahead of his Cypriot rival. Meanwhile the fight for bronze was more equal between Swede Rasmus Mygren and Croat Tonci Stipanović, with Mygren just one point ahead (or even in medal race terms, where each position is worth two points).

With 17-18 knots blowing on the Nothe course, Slingsby engaged with Kontides in some pre-start match racing, but at the gun the two fell in mid-line with the Cypriot immediately to weather, while the Sweden v Croatia match was taking place at the committee boat end with Stipanović to weather. Off the line Kontides tacked and was followed by Slingsby as the other match race headed off to the left side. At the weather mark Slingsby was immediately ahead of his rival while Stipanović had broken clear of Mygren rounding fifth as the Swede trailed in 10th.

On the run the Aussie and Cypriot boats gybed early and went off to do their own thing as Mygren closed in on Stipanović, rounding the leeward gate sixth and seventh, with Slingsby and Kontides by this time bringing up the rear.

Up the second beat, Slingsby and Kontides remained locked as one as Stipanović and Mygren split tacks, the Swede heading right. Not covering proved to be the Croat’s downfall as it allowed Mygren to edge ahead, rounding the top mark fifth with Stipanović in seventh.

On the next beat it was Mygren’s turn to cover his opponent, tacking back as the Croat headed out to the left. Meanwhile at the back of the pack Slingsby was maintaining an increasingly loose cover on his opponent having pushed the Cypriot roundly back into last place. On the final run Slingsby and Mygren maintained their covers, which they maintained to the finish line. Thus Slingsby maintained the status quo to claim a well deserved gold, Kontides silver, with bronze going to Mygren, subject to a protest.

On crossing the line Slingsby was ecstatic. After the pent-up frustration of having departed Beijing with nothing, this was the fruits of eight years hard graft at the top of the Laser class. “Words can’t describe it,” he said. “I have really been through the highs and lows of the sport over the last eight years and to come away from China with nothing was a heart-breaking feeling. But now I am feeling the very high of the sport and I am the happiest guy in the world.

“Yesterday I watched the Finns and the Stars and I saw a couple of guys have the gold medal slip through their fingers and I said there and then: ‘That’s not going to be me’. So I had to be pretty brutal at times today, but luckily he [Kontides] couldn’t lose his silver medal, so I could really concentrate on my job and try and push him down the fleet.

“I felt in control the whole race. A couple of times he showed some good speed and popped out from beneath me, but luckily the shift went back my way and it was always easy to keep him in check.

“For me the big thing is the venue. In China I was never comfortable and whenever I sailed there I didn’t do very well. This time, whenever I felt a bit of nerves about China, I just went back to how well I’ve done here [in Weymouth] and I really lived in that confidence that if I sail well, then no one is going to beat me.”

From here Slingsby goes home to recuperate for a brief time for he says of all the sacrifices he has had to make in his intensive Olympic campaign, being away from home for nine or ten months of each year and being absent family and friends, is what he missed most . “I have spent three nights in my bed this year. I just want to get home and have a couple of beers with my mates in the beer garden and relax for a bit.”

After that he will be followed Ben Ainslie to Oracle Team USA where he has a full time contract until next October.

As to his future Olympic plans Slingsby is uncertain, but still only 27, he isn’t discounting a return. “I’m not sure what I’ll do with my Olympic career. Obviously if I hadn’t come away with a medal, I wouldn’t have been cut out for the Olympics after winning all the other stuff and never getting a medal. It is a pretty amazing feeling and I am definitely going to remember this feeling when I am thinking about another campaign.”

As we reported previously, Pavlos Kontides’ Olympic medal is of particular significance because it is the first ever to be won by Cyprus since gaining independence in 1960.

"It was really amazing to sail the medal race without the pressure of losing,” Kontides said. “I knew that I could only gain. It was always going to be hard to beat Tom with this kind of breeze. It was a bit more stable compared to yesterday, when we saw Iain [Percy] holding the gold medal and then 200 metres from the finish, losing it. I also feel sorry for the Croatian guy that he didn't manage to win that bronze today." Kontides and Tonci Stipanović have been training partners for the last four years.

"When I get back home there will be huge celebrations, because this is a huge achievement for my country, the first-ever Olympic medal. When I have the medal over my neck and I am back home with my compatriots, then I will really understand what's going on. I hadn't really seen it because I didn't allow myself to be emotional, just focussed."

For Rasmus Myrgren the bronze medal wasn’t confirmed until he’d been through a protest hearing. The Technical Committee brought the protest against the Swede as on shore he had bent his mast without informing the measurer.

“It was a formality,” said Myrgren after the protest was dismissed. “The measurement guy had to file a protest for me bending the mast but on the other hand I had to bend the mast because you are not allowed to sail with a bent mast in the Laser rules. So I had to do it and there was no penalty for it. The only thing that I forget to do was ask the measurer if I could bend it and he was supposed to say ‘yes’ and he was 5m away.”

Myrgren had been told about the protest before the start. “But I realised that I had done what I should do, so I wasn’t really worried.”

Myrgren, 33, is a veteran of the Laser class having been competing in it for some 14 years. He represented Sweden in Beijing where he finished sixth. Recently he has been a regular in the top 10 and was sixth in our ranking going into London 2012. Aside from his Olympic sailing he is a management consultant back in Sweden, but took two years out to sail full time prior to Beijing and did the same this time.

“Usually I do well when I have to! I have taken many breaks. I stopped sailing after the Games last time and made a comeback two years ago. Maybe I give myself too little times.

So Rio? “Maybe. I don’t know. I have to think about it.” However he acknowledges that as one of the lighter Laser sailors his prospects would be good for Rio.

Winning bronze will change your life? “Not too much I think, at least not on the outside. On the inside I am a happy man.”

Out of the medal prospects going into today thanks to his ill-timed disc problems, Britain’s Paul Goodison made a last hurrah today in the medal race blasting off the pin end and leading around the first lap.

“For me I had it in my head that it was going to be a shorter race, so that if I pushed as hard as I possibly could it would be over even quicker!” he joked. “I wanted to perform for all the people who have helped me get through this week, to be in the medal race, who have patched me back together each day and for all the support I have had over the last four years, which has been tremendous. It was a more a case of going out there fighting, just to finish it off even though we weren’t going to win medals.

“I wanted to put on a good performance and I think I nailed the start pretty well and gave it everything up the first beat and once I had pulled away down the first run I thought it is finally going to come right, it is finally going to be easy. But then I got a penalty at the bottom of the run – I chuckled to myself – and went ‘that kind of sums it up’. Then I got back into the lead and got another penalty on the run.... (the guy said I was sheeting too hard downwind but it was 20 knots out there – it was pretty full on, so I was quite surprised). It was quite strange because I normally get quite angry with the jury and scream at them, but I kind of just chucked. And then I fought back and managed to finish third in the race, so I kind of did myself justice considering the shape I am in.”

Goodison admitted that he is still in a lot of pain. “It is like anything, you get used to it, but the biggest problem is that when you bounce and compress the discs, there is a shooting pain that goes down my leg and just knowing that when you bounce that that is going to happen – it takes your mind off what you are doing and you are less likely to do it and you hesitate and you do that at the wrong time then you are not in sync, so it is hard, tough and really frustrating.”

It has also made his start to the day slightly more time-consuming. “Rather than a simple warm-up on the bike and then some stretching, it is acupuncture and it is taking quite a lot of pills, using different sorts of strapping – I don’t know what these plasters are that numb your back, but they are pretty special.”

Goodison is getting an MRI scan next week and after that a decision will be made as to whether rest will fix his back or if he requires surgery. In the meantime the remainder of the week is about remaining on station to help the team (it has been great to see Iain Percy pulling Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes’ 49er back into the boat park today, for example).

Looking forward, Goodison hasn’t discounted competing at Rio 2016, but given his back problems and that he will be 37 by the time that comes around, one imagines it won’t be in the Laser.

“I love the Olympics, it is what my life has been about for the last 12 years and I don’t really know what boat it is going to be in or how soon I am going to start my campaign for that but it is always special to do the Olympics and it is so so special to do well at the Olympics, so I think – go away, get fixed and start making some decisions nearer to Christmas.”

As to Slingsby’s success Goodison paid tribute: “I think he deserves it. He has obviously been at the top of his game for a while now and I know how much he must have been hurting after Beijing, in the same way as I was hurting after Athens. It is a long long four years before you get another go and the relief is tremendous when you get it right and I saw him smack his boat and jumping around when he was finished and went up to congratulate him. He deserved to win.”

More from Carlo Borlenghi/www.borlenghi.com/FIV