Master mariner Matt Wearn had an unassailable lead as he lined up to win back-to-back Olympic titles. Editor at Large Louise Evans got caught-up in his whirlwind gold medal race.
Matt Wearn bent the wind and the will of a warring fleet to become the first solo sailor to win back-to-back Olympic laser class titles in a dramatic, stop-start final in Marseilles.
The Tokyo Olympic and dual world champion did it in commanding style by winning the final race when he only needed to finish in the top seven or better.
It was also Australia’s 15th gold medal and continued the proud record of four Australian Olympic titles in the single-man dinghy, following the success of fellow green and gold sailors Tom Slingsby in London 2012 and Tom Burton in Rio 2016.
“It hasn’t sunk in yet, I have been dreaming about winning one gold for three years and now I have two,” he said. “Going back-to-back, no-one else has done it, which shows just how special it is. That really hits home.
“We’re so proud of what we do as a country, to bring home gold is even more special. Having the whole nation behind us gives us the edge. Representing Australia is phenomenal.”
Wearn, 28, had to withstand everything mother nature could throw at him as he yet again out-thought, out-manoeuvred and out-classed the world’s best in the bay of Marseille at the Paris Olympics.
He also had to be patient as the notorious light winds that prevail in the Marseille bay played havoc with the six-day schedule, resulting in one day being cancelled.
The mental and physical stress would test the strength of Neptune at the west-facing Marseille Marina on the Mediterranean, 750km south of Paris.
Going into the gold medal race Wearn held a 14-point lead over Cypriot Tokyo Olympic silver medallist Pavlos Kontides who faced mission impossible to stop Wearn from winning his second consecutive gold, needing to finish at least seven places ahead of the Australian in the final race.
He was minutes from sealing gold when the first gold medal race was abandoned due to a lack of wind – a decision that caused him to slap the water with disappointment and frustration.
“It was stressful and frustrating,” he said. “I executed a great start and had Pavlos behind me. It was frustrating so I just had to reset and give it another go. I couldn’t give an inch.”
The final race had already been shifted from Tuesday to Wednesday because of light breezy conditions.
“Days like that are frustrating,” the young Australian conqueror said. “It’s not fantastic to have to sit around. But in this sport you have to be good at switching on and off.
“Anytime you’re leading the fleet is always a good feeling. I couldn’t do worse than silver so that was nice, but I came here for one medal, and to defend my title from Tokyo, so that’s what I wanted to do.”
His Perth parents Brad and Karen were onshore “baking in the Marseille sun” playing the waiting game too. “Matt was looking so calm, cool and collected, but inside we were going crazy,” Karen said.
The course inside Marseille bay is tricky. It’s enclosed with waves bouncing back off rock walls and islands which makes the water messy and disturbed. It’s harder to read. But Wearn is the master tactician. Plus it was a hot 30 degrees, like a Perth summer’s day that Wearn is so used to.
In the first race on Wednesday that was abandoned, Wearn had Kontides right where he wanted him. He stuck to him like a fly on a lamington at the start, drawing a penalty and forcing Kontides into the chase position.
Wearn was sitting in fifth and in the gold-medal position after the third mark with the finish line in sight when poor wind forced the fleet to a standstill. What an anti climax.
“Mentally you are playing a chess game with your competitors. You’re trying to figure out the wind and position yourself, to be the first person to get the shift and the new breeze,” he said.
“At the same time you are trying to manipulate other competitors into positions so you can control them.”
Parents Karen and Brad confessed their blood pressure was sky high. But they were not worried about their brave boy having to sail one and three-quarter races for gold.
“Matt thrives in this pressure, just ask his brother and sister ‘don’t get him mad’,” mother Karen said.
An hour after the first cancellation the fleet were back on the water and racing for gold – again in light shifty winds.
This time round Wearn flew across the start, won the tacking duals with Kontides, stayed out of trouble when the fleet got congested as they jostled to catch the light wind.
He was in fourth position at the second mark and moved into first at the fourth and final mark. When he crossed the finish line he slapped the water repeatedly – this time in jubilation.
Streaming tears of relief his parents screamed “awesome effort”. “He’s got the strength, determination and focus, it’s unbelievable, he’s scary he’s just so determined,” mother Karen said.
“My parents have invested so much in me, they have been there for the whole journey and flown all the way to Marseilles to have this moment – it’s phenomenal,” Wearn said.
When he got back to shore Wearn and his boat were chaired across the sand by an Australian flotilla of teammates, family and friends.
Wearn competes in the unsexy-sounding ILCA 7 class. ILCA stands for International Laser Class Association. It’s a one-man dinghy that’s 4.23m long with a single sail and hull. Wearn loves it because “the racing is as pure as you can get”. “It’s very tactical at the big major events – the world championships and the Olympics. There’s no advantage with the equipment,” he said. “So it’s all about the sailor and what he can do.”
The supplied dinghies add an X-factor. It removes any technical advantage but no two boats are built exactly the same. They’re man made, there’ll be little differences in weight and rigging so “it’s the luck of the draw”.
Wearn describes himself as a tactical sailor who studies the numbers, stays in control and leaves little to chance.
“You try to predict the conditions as much as you can. We have meteorologists and experts and coaches to help us understand the wind. You try to get the best understanding before you go out on the water,” he said.
“Once the race starts it’s up to your intuition to figure out what the wind is doing to the water. You try to predict how the wind is going to bend around a point or an island. It’s 80 per cent prediction and then 20 per cent what you see and feel.
“If you’re waiting until you feel it, you are going to be behind. You have to try to see as far ahead as possible to know what’s coming.”
“I like to sail free and clear, my style and tactics is to be in control of the fleet and not too close to other people.
Wearn grew up in a sailing family adept at handling strong winds off the Royal Perth Yacht Club on the Swan River which empties into the Indian Ocean at Fremantle.
As a kid he flirted with football and was drafted into the West Perth AFL Development Squad. But the boats v footy boots battle was won when Wearn was just 13, after Perth sailing pair Elise Rechichi and Tessa Parkinson arrived back from the Beijing 2008 Olympics with gold medals in hand.
Wearn was in awe. Playing at the MCG suddenly seemed like a fish bowl compared to the Olympics and sailing around the world.
“Elise and Tessa gave me the understanding of where sailing could go. My goal shifted. I decided I wanted to bring home a gold medal for Australia.”
He didn’t have to wait long. Over the past seven years Wearn has proved that if he’s at the start line at a major regatta – he’s going to medal if not win.
He celebrated his 22nd birthday in Croatia with a bronze medal around his neck from the 2017 world championships behind second-placed Australian Olympic champion Burton.
Over the next three years from 2018-20 Wearn collected three consecutive world championship silvers, proving he could medal in all conditions – Denmark, Japan, Melbourne.
Then the big one – Olympic gold in Tokyo 2021, the third consecutive gold for Australia following the success of fellow green and gold sailors Slingsby in London 2012 and Burton in Rio 2016.
Catching Covid and then being diagnosed with Long Covid wrecked Wearn’s 2022 season and forced him to withdraw from the Mexico world championships suffering mental and physical fatigue. It bent him but didn’t break him.
He changed his training and arrived in Paris fitter and stronger. His recovery, when it finally came, was spectacular, winning the Olympic test event in July 2023 at Marseille.
Then he raced away with back-to-back world championships in August 2023 in the Netherlands and 2024 in Adelaide, making him an unassailable gold medal prospect for Paris, where he so authoritatively stepped up into the role of the world’s laser king.
Louise Evans is an award-winning journalist who has worked around Australia and the world as a reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and media executive for media platforms including The Sydney Morning Herald (eight years), The Australian (11 years) and Australian Associated Press (six years in London, Beijing and Sydney).
A women sports’ pioneer, Louise was the first female sports journalist employed by The Sydney Morning Herald and the first female sports editor at The Australian. Louise went on to work at six Olympic Games, six Commonwealth Games and numerous world sporting championships and grand slam tennis events.
Louise is the Founding Editor of AAP FactCheck, the Creator of #WISPAA – Women in Sport Photo Action Awards and national touring Exhibition and the author and producer of the Passage to Pusan book, documentary and exhibition.
In 2019 she was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) Queen’s Honour for services to the media and sport and named an Australian Financial Review Top 100 Woman of Influence for services to the arts, culture and sport.
In 2020 she won a NSW Volunteer of the Year Award plus the NSW Government Community Service Award for her women-in-sport advocacy work.
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