Italy repeats at Paris 2024 Olympics

Marseille, France (August 8, 2024) – The Mixed Multihull is one of 10 Sailing events held at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Using the Nacra 17 equipment, 19 nations completed a 12-race Opening Series on August 3-6, with the top 10 advancing to the Medal Race on August 7. When light air prevailed that day, the double-point Medal Race was postponed to today to finalize the cumulative results. Here’s the final report:

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Event details – Results – Notice Board

Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti (ITA) retained their Olympic title, finishing second in the Medal Race to win by 24 points. After the Italian crew picked up the gold medal in Tokyo 2020, they didn’t skip a beat in Marseille, winning half the races in the Opening Series. Heading into the Medal Race, Tita and Banti had at least a silver locked up, but they wanted more and duly earnt their prize.

“We said to each other before starting this cycle that winning the second one is going to be much harder than winning the first one,” Tita admitted. “We are proud of what we achieved during this period. It’s all about the work that we put in together over three years and the three World Championships won. We are happy, but we knew it was going to be hard to win it again.”

Banti added, “It was really light wind, but this is sailing, it’s how the game is.”

The Nacra 17 was introduced for the new Mixed Multihull event at Rio 2016, and the equipment has been gradually revised to keep pace with evolving design trends.

Argentina – Silver
Argentina’s Mateo Majdalani and Eugenia Bosco were the primary challengers and were the only crew capable of taking gold from the Italians. They placed seventh in the Medal Race which meant they settled for a superb silver in the Nacra 17 class.

“I think if you told us that we’d go into the Medal Race in second place we’d take it, so we are really, really happy,” shared Majdalani.

New Zealand – Bronze
Great Britain’s John Gimson and Anna Burnet started the day in third, but a penalty at the start line hindered them and gave New Zealand’s Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson the opening to finish in front. The Kiwis eventually came eighth in the Medal Race, which was enough to take the bronze.

“This wasn’t our best race, but at the end of the day we stayed in it long enough to pull it off,” shared Wilkinson. “It feels amazing.”

Dawson added, “We’re so proud of how we sailed and we feel like a lot of hard work has gone into it. It all came together at the right time for us, we put a lot of focus on being an all-round team and being good in all conditions and I feel like we achieved that.”

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Final Results:
1. Ruggero Tita/ Caterina Banti (ITA)
2. Mateo Majdalani/ Eugenia Bosco (ARG)
3. Micah Wilkinson/ Erica Dawson (NZL)
16. Sarah Newberry Moore/ David Liebenberg (USA)

Event details – Results – Notice Board