Canada's Paul Tingley claimed the 2.4mR gold medal in fine style Saturday afternoon by winning the final race of the series from his major adversaries, Athens 2004 Gold medalist and new Beijing silver medalist Damien Seguin (France), Athens bronze medalist Thierry Schmitter (the Netherlands) and new bronze medalist John Ruf (United States) who finished Race 10 in fourth place.
Any of the top seven going into today's final Races 9 and 10, could have claimed medals, such was the closeness of the competition, including in the final two races in which the top places changed throughout the race.
Onlookers on Fushan Bay cheered the top three in Race 10 over the line, as they finished abreast of each other and it was difficult to see just who had won.
The Canadian cheer squad went wild when Tingley crossed the finish line, as did he, leaving no doubt as to who had won gold, while Seguin fought back with a win in Race 9 and his second in Race 10 to snag silver after suffering a difficult day mid-series.
Such was his excitement, Tingley commented on coming ashore: "First I want to say I love China and I love sailing in Qingdao! I am in shock -- I've never won anything this big before." However, he did win bronze as a crew of the Paralympic Sonar team at the Sydney 2000 Paralympics.
The Canadian commented on his gold medal winning performance in Race 10: "I knew whoever won the last race was probably going to win the regatta. I had to make a hard choice in the last race whether to go left or right. I chose right and thankfully the wind filled in on that side."
Ruf, who appeared to be Tingley's main challenger throughout the series, trailed the three over the line in Race 10, disappointed the gold had slipped from his grasp after scoring a pair of fourth places, but knowing he had given his best in the extremely high-caliber fleet.
However, silver medalist Seguin was thrilled with his comeback: "I am really happy about finally coming out as the silver medalist because I dove down too deep in some of my previous races. I was a bit unlucky in the middle part of the series because the wind was light and shifty and I dropped from lead positions, but today I was lucky," he enthused.
Big names filled the next three places too: Heiko Kroger (Germany) the Sydney 2000 Paralympic gold medalist, Thierry Schmitter (the Netherlands) the Athens bronze medalist, and Sydney 2000 silver medalist Jens Andersen (Denmark) finishing fourth, fifth and sixth respectively in what was an enthralling series from start to end.
Today's conditions were ideal 8-12 knot winds on lumpy seas that had all competitors concentrating and chasing waves to surf down on the runs.
(BOCOG September 13, 2008)