Italian sailors retain Olympic title in multihull. Austrian duo wins gold in mixed dinghy

MARSEILLE, France (AP) — Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti of Italy retained their Olympic title in the mixed team multihull Thursday and Austria’s Lara Vadlau and Lukas Maehr combined to win gold in the mixed dinghy, a new sailing category for the Paris Games.

“We knew winning again would be the hardest thing of all,” Tita said of adding the gold medal here to their victory in Tokyo three years ago. “It’s a success that comes over a long, long time.”

Mateo Majdalani and Eugenia Bosco of Argentina took silver in the event, also known as Nacra 17, while Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson of New Zealand got bronze.

Usually the catamarans fly off the water on foils, but the same fickle, light breezes that have plagued Olympic sailing for a week meant the racers never got to foiling, and that’s rare for a medal race.

“We knew Marseille was going to throw everything at us,” Wilkinson said.

The dinghy known as 470 became a mixed event in these Games, the first with equal medal opportunities for men and women.

In that race, completed just before the multihull final, Keiju Okada and Miho Yoshioka of Japan won silver and Anton Dahlberg and Lovisa Karlsson of Sweden took bronze.

“It’s a big honor to give back to our country,” Maehr said.

Austria’s last Olympic gold medal in sailing was 20 years ago.

Okada, with a large Japanese flag covering his head in the beating midday sun, said he was proud of the supporters.

“My family and coach and all Japanese sailors cheered us on every day at midnight in Japan,” he said.

The Swedish duo screamed with joy on the beach after one last battle with the light winds that challenged so many sailors.

“We’ve been fighting so hard for this the whole week,” Karlsson said.

Majdalani’s parents, Juan and Mariela Majdalani, were there to celebrate the medal when the sailors reached shore.

“Enormous, enormous emotion,” Juan Majdalani said, a giant Argentina flag unfurled in front of him. “Because I know it’s the culmination of eight years of work for him, but in reality, of all his life.”

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games