Rio Olympics 2016 - Seychellois sailors finish way off medals rankings |18 August 2016

Laser sailor Rodney Govinden, Finn sailor Allan Julie and windsurfer Jean-Marc Gardette could not finish among the medals in Rio de Janeiro but the country’s search for the elusive Olympic medal goes on as female high jumper Lissa Labiche enters into action today.

The sailing events at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games are over and despite never making it among the top positions in the various races, our athletes still have reasons to be proud after testing themselves against the best athletes from all over the world.

Reigning Sportsman of the Year Rodney Govinden competed in the Laser standard class where his overall rank was 45th out of 46 sailors. His best performance was a 37th place finish in races four and six.

Govinden’s results in the other races were: 45th in race 1, 41st in race 2, DNF (did not finish) race 3, 37th in race 4, 42nd in race 5, 37th in race 6, 41st in race 7, 41st in race 8, 43rd in race 9 and 38th in race 10.

It was Australian Tom Burton who claimed the gold medal in this category with a total of 73 points, while the silver medal went to Tonči Stipanović of Croatia (75 points) and New Zealand’s Sam Meech (85 points) won bronze.

Making his fifth Olympics Games appearance, Allan Julie competed in the Finn class for the first time and he finished 23rd and last with a total of 186 points.

Here, Julie’s best performances were two 17th place finishes which were in races 2 and 5.

In all Julie finished 23rd in race 1, 17th in race 2, 23rd in race 3, 21st in race 4, 17th in race 5, 18th in race 6, 23rd in race 7, 23rd in race 8, 22nd in race 9 and 22nd in race 10.

Gilles Scott of Great Britain won the gold medal in this category with a total of 36 points, while Vasilij Žbogar of Slovenia settled for silver with 69 points. American Caleb Paine won the bronze medal with 76 points.

In RSX windsurfing, Seychelles was represented by Jean-Marc Gardette and he finished 33rd out of 36 windsurfers. His best performance was a 23rd place finish in race 5. His full results are 36th in race 1, 35th in race 2, 33rd in race 3, 31st in race 4, 23rd in race 5, 32nd in race 6, 29th in race 7, DNF in race 8, 35th in race 9, DNF in race 10, 32nd in race 11 and 33rd in race 12.

Here, the gold medal was won by Holland’s Dorian van Rijsselberghe with 25 points, followed by Nick Dempsey of Great Britain with 52 points for the silver medal and the bronze medal went to Pierre Le Coq of France with 86 points.

In watersports, the athletes with the least points lead the standings.

S. N.