Australia’s Matt Wearn has maintained Australia’s dominance in the Laser Class at the Olympic Games, today winning the nation’s third consecutive Gold in the event.

Wearn overcame a nervous start to the regatta to completely dominate the middle and late stages to have the Gold wrapped up in advance of today’s Medal Race.

“Probably relief,” was his first emotion after securing the Olympic crown. “It has been quite a long journey and a particularly stressful week. It wasn’t the ideal start to a regatta, so I couldn’t have felt better than locking away a gold medal before the Medal Race.”

At what stage did Wearn know he has secured the Gold?

“In the last fleet race I had a pretty vague idea when I was rounding that last top mark and I was in that leading group and saw Pavlos was reasonably deep. Hermann (Tomasgaard) was up with me but I had a reasonable points gap on him as well. That was probably when it started to feel a little bit more real, but it wasn’t until I crossed the line and confirmed it with Blackers that we were 22 points in front and had sealed the deal.”

The man behind Australia’s three consecutive Laser gold medals is master coach Michael Blackburn.

“Quite a thrill to get it done early,” Blackburn said before today’s Medal Race. “It has been a goal of mine to have someone win the regatta before the medal race, because the medal races can be a bit iffy sometimes. To get it done in such a good style and quite unexpectedly is quite the thrill.”

Blackburn will now go down as Olympic coaching great, and he credits the rest of the Australian Sailing Team Laser squad and a fake review conducted 12 months ago with helping today’s win.

“Around this time last year we pretended the Games were over and Wearny had finished fourth,” Blackburn said. ”We did a review based on that concept. I got the other guys in the squad to help out given their intimate knowledge of how Wearny sails, and that review highlighted that we needed to tune up the light wind skills. We worked on that specifically over the past 12 months and that probably made a 20-30% improvement in light wind execution and speed. That made a real difference in the 4 to 5 knot races here at the Games.”

470 veterans Mat Belcher and Will Ryan are on the cusp of creating history in the 470 class. The duo hold a 19-point lead into the final day of fleet races tomorrow after another a pair of top-two finishes today. If they can extend that lead to 20 points after tomorrow’s racing then they will be assured Gold ahead of Wednesday’s Medal Race.
 
“We felt like we were in a really good rhythm (before yesterday’s day off) so all you want to do is try to keep it going,” Belcher said. “We don’t usually have days off at a regatta so we had a lot of time to think. To come away with a 1 and a 2 today is something we are really proud of.”
 
There was the added distraction of Matt Wearn’s Gold in the Laser today, but Belcher and Ryan remain focussed. “Matty sat down with us at breakfast this morning and we were talking about how we can support each other and get through the regatta,” finished Belcher. “Hopefully we can finish off and have a good time together afterwards.”

Nia Jerwood and Monique de Vries are making the most of their first Olympic Games, and even though results have not gone their way to this point they are ready to turn things around in their final two fleet races tomorrow.
 
“There were some good moments and some not so good moments today,” said a weary de Vries after their eighth race today.
 
“There were some really big shifts out there which made it really tricky, but we’ve just got to get some of the smaller details right. We got some good starts which was our goal today, so we will tick that off the list and take some of the strategic and tactical lessons we learned from today into tomorrow.”

Australia’s Rio 2016 Nacra 17 silver medallists sit in 4^th place after another big day of racing in Enoshima today.

Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin clocked in consistent scores of 6^th, 5^th and 8^th to qualify for Tuesday's Medal Race, which is scheduled to start at 4:30pm AEST.

The cousins from Sydney’s Northern Beaches will be back and ready to attack the race course aggressively in order to secure a spot on the podium. They sit seven points behind the German team in third and 19 behind Great Britain in second.

Jake Lilley continued to show that he is one of the best Finn sailors in the world in the back half of a regatta with two top-six finishes today. His fine form ensured he qualified for his second successive Olympic Medal Race, which he will contest at 3:30pm AEST on Tuesday.

Jake will be hoping for similar conditions for Tuesday's Medal Race, which will be held on the Enoshima race course and broadcast live on 7plus. You can either download the 7plus app or use the desktop version to cheer Jake on.