Burton Wins Gold in Rio

Weather conditions put his gold medal dream on hold for 24 hours but it was worth the wait for NSWIS sailor Tom Burton.

The 26-year-old produced the sail of his life to win gold in the Laser class early this morning.

It is Australia’s first sailing gold medal of the Rio Olympics.

“It feels great to win gold,” Burton told the AOC website.

“The amount of hours I have put into this, the sacrifices I have made; not going to my sister’s wedding, skipping the Opening Ceremony to try and get a good result and it’s all perfect now.”

It was an incredible performance in tactics and skill from Burton to claim the gold.

He came into the medal race in second position, 10 points behind Croatia’s Tonci Stipanovic.

With double points applied to the medal race, he needed to put five positions between himself and the Croatian to be a chance of winning the gold.

The Australian put in place a move at the start line which had been drawn up over the past two days.

He called it a “one in 10 chance” of working. It did.

Stipanovic was forced to chase Burton, making contact with his boat and being forced into a penalty turn.

It was then that Burton seized his moment, racing through the field to put the required gap on the world number two.

He knew he needed to finish third or better to win the gold.

“The percentage chance I thought that I could win the gold was pretty slim.

“You want to do it and you want it to come off but you see these situations at many Olympics and many other Championships and it’s quite easy to slow a guy down and then finish at the back.”

“We had a lot of talks in the last couple of days about a catch and release, get a penalty and just make it back for the start. It couldn’t have come off any better it was perfection nearly.”

Incredibly, it was the first time all week the Australian had taken the lead in the competition, having quietly progressed through the field over the back half of the series.

He was in front when it mattered most.

“I was five seconds late to the start which is not ideal but if the guy that is trying to slow you down is way further back than you then it’s great. I just stay close to all the other boats and give myself 25 minutes to pass the others.”

“I just tried to chip away. I just needed a few more boats and keep it close. Everyone was nervous out there. They are trying to do their own thing with the points they have so I just tried to put the pressure on.”

“I was counting them off one at a time. I knew I wasn’t just going to go from last to first and I knew I just had to stay close.”

“On the last down-wind I knew I was four ahead of him and I knew I needed to come third to win. I could see there were three boats ahead of him.”