At the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, M. Wearn triumphed in the men’s one-person laser event. The Australian sailor came in second position in the medal race and won with a total of four points.
France’s Jean Baptiste Bernaz won the medal race at Enoshima Yacht Harbour, but his total score of 92 put him in sixth place.
Overall, M. Wearn scored 53 points, and Croatia’s Tonci Stipanovic, who placed fourth in the medal race with eight points, scored 82 to win the silver. Stipanovic also medaled in the men’s laser event at the 2016 Rio Olympics, bringing home the silver.
With Hermann Tomasgaard’s score of 85, Norway won its first sailing medal since 2004. After Tom Slingsby (2012) and Tom Burton (2016), Australia now has three gold medals in a row thanks to M. Wearn’s victory.
According to M. Wearn, “for at least 15 years this is all I’ve wanted to accomplish.” If you’re going to the Olympics, your main goal should be to win a gold medal, therefore I couldn’t be happier that my wish has come true.
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M. Wearn had Already Built an insurmountable Lead in the Medal Race Before it Even Began.
After the first ten races, his score of 49 was 22 points below that of the second-placed sailor, Hermann Tomasgaard of Norway, and there were just 20 points up for grabs in the medal race.
Assuming he completed the race and was not disqualified, the silver medalist in the laser world championship would have won the overall point standings.
M. Wearn had a nagging fear that anything similar to what happened in the men’s RS:X medal race—a false start or other complications that caused some of the fleet to be disqualified—would happen again.
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Final Words
“The Australian sailor continued, “There’s always that potential that something like that may happen, so the idea was simply to go out there and get a clean start and be able to compete from there.” And to do so while still taking pleasure in the competition.”
And that’s exactly what he did. M. Wearn started off slowly but steadily. He was in fourth place at the first checkpoint, but he dropped to fifth by the second.
The 25-year-old sailor was able to work his way up to second place by the third marking, travelling at speeds of up to six knots. He stayed here until the very end, coming in second to Bernaz by a slim margin of only two seconds.
