Sailing at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Finn

The Men's Finn was a sailing event on the Sailing at the 2012 Summer Olympics program in Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy.^[1] Eleven races (last one a medal race) were scheduled and completed. 24 sailors, on 24 boats, from 24 nations competed. Ten boats qualified for the medal race on course area Nothe in front of Weymouth, where each position scored double points.

Men's Finn at the Games of the XXX Olympiad
Line drawing of the Finn
Venue	Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy
Dates	29 July – 5 August
Competitors	24 from 24 nations
Medalists
Ben Ainslie  Great Britain Jonas Høgh-Christensen  Denmark Jonathan Lobert  France
← 2008 2016 →

Summary

Ben Ainslie's gold postbox in Lymington

Ben Ainslie took his fifth consecutive sailing medal, and his fourth consecutive gold. However, there was a heavy battle with Jonas Høgh Christensen of Denmark that was only decided at the last mark of the medal race. Ainslie and Høgh Christensen finally had an equal number of points but Ainslie had a higher score in one of the races.

Dutchman Pieter-Jan Postma almost took the gold while Ainslie and Høgh Christensen were battling it out, but at the last buoy Postma hit the camera on the New Zealand boat and took a penalty lap, dropping him to 4th place.

Ainslie took over the position of Paul Elvstrøm as most successful Olympic sailor with one silver medal in 1996 (Laser) and fourth consecutive gold 2000 (Laser), 2004 (Finn), 2008 (Finn) and 2012 (Finn). Elvstrøm won the Firefly in 1948 and the Finn in 1952, 1956 and 1960.

Schedule[1][2]

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Practice race

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Race on Nothe

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Race on West

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Race on South

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Medal race on Nothe

Date	July						August
	26 Thu	27 Fri	28 Sat	29 Sun		30 Mon	31 Tue	1 Wed	2 Thu	3 Fri	4 Sat	5 Sun	6 Mon	7 Tue	8 Wed	9 Thu	10 Fri	11 Sat	12 Sun
Men's Finn			●	1	1	2	2	Spare day	2	2	Spare day	MR

Course areas and course configurations [3]

Main article: Sailing courses at the 2012 Summer Olympics

Course areas

Portland (P)   Nothe (N)   West (W)

South (S)   East (E)

For the Finn course areas Nothe, West, and South. The location (50° 36.18’ N 02° 25.98’ W) points to the center of the Nothe course area, the location (50° 37.18’ N 02° 23.55’ W) points to the center of the West course area and the location (50° 35.71’ N 02° 22.08’ W) points to the center of the South course area. The target time for the course was 60 minutes for the races and 30 minutes for the medal race. The race management could choose from many course configurations.

Results

Results of individual races

Pos	Helmsman	Country	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII	IX	X	MR	Tot	Pts
	Ben Ainslie	Great Britain	2	2	6	12†	4	3	1	3	6	1	18	58.0	46.0
	Jonas Høgh-Christensen	Denmark	1	1	2	7	1	2	8†	4	5	3	20	54.0	46.0
	Jonathan Lobert	France	9	4	4	2	6	7	5	10†	3	7	2	59.0	49.0
4	Pieter-Jan Postma	Netherlands	5	10	3	4	20†	13	2	2	1	2	10	72.0	52.0
5	Ivan Kljaković Gašpić	Croatia	3	3	7	9	5	6	3	7	4	10†	8	65.0	55.0
6	Vasilij Žbogar	Slovenia	8	6	5	3	8	5	9†	6	2	6	14	72.0	63.0
7	Dan Slater	New Zealand	7	11	1	6	17†	11	6	15	8	14	4	100.0	83.0
8	Rafael Trujillo	Spain	12	12	12	23†	7	4	15	1	13	4	6	109.0	86.0
9	Daniel Birgmark	Sweden	17†	5	14	1	9	9	10	12	10	8	12	107.0	90.0
10	Tapio Nirkko	Finland	11	13	8	5	3	12	4	5	15	17†	16	109.0	92.0
11	Deniss Karpak	Estonia	14†	9	11	11	11	1	7	13	11	11		99.0	85.0
12	Zach Railey	United States	10	15	13	17	2	8	12	8	12	19†		116.0	97.0
13	Brendan Casey	Australia	DNF 25†	7	DPI 16	14	10	17	19	9	9	5		131.0	106.0
14	Ioannis Mitakis	Greece	4	21	10	8	OCS 25†	10	20	19	7	9		133.0	108.0
15	Greg Douglas	Canada	16	24†	16	13	12	18	13	17	20	12		160.0	137.0
16	Piotr Kula	Poland	DSQ 25†	16	17	16	13	20	OCS 25	11	14	16		173.0	148.0
17	Eduard Skornyakov	Russia	13	8	22†	15	19	22	16	16	22	22		175.0	153.0
18	Alican Kaynar	Turkey	18	14	18	18	DNE 25	14	11	22†	16	20		176.0	154.0
19	Oleksiy Borysov	Ukraine	RDG 21	RDG 18.6	19	19	15	19	23†	14	17	18		183.6	160.6
20	Jorge Zarif	Brazil	15	20	15	20	16	24†	14	21	19	21		185.0	161.0
21	Michal Maier	Czech Republic	19	18	21	10	18	23†	18	20	23	15		185.0	162.0
22	Filippo Baldassari	Italy	20	23†	24	21	14	21	17	18	18	13		188.0	164.0
23	Florian Raudaschl	Austria	6	19	23	24	OCS 25†	15	21	24	24	23		204.0	179.0
24	Gong Lei	China	OCS 25	17	20	22	OCS 25†	16	22	23	21	24		215.0	190.0

Scoring system: low-point system; Source: ^[4]
Legend:   – Qualified for medal race(s); DNE – Non excludable disqualification; DNF – Did not finish; DSQ – Disqualified; OCS – On the course side of the starting line; † – Discarded race not counted in the overall result;

Daily standings

Graph showing the daily standings in the Men's Finn during the 2012 Summer Olympics

Further reading

• "Digital Library Collection (Official Olympic Reports 1896 - 2008)". Digital Library Collection at la84.org. la84foundation. Retrieved 3 March 2014.
• "London 2012". Olympics.com. International Olympic Committee.

References

1. "London 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition Notice of Race" (PDF). Retrieved 1 April 2014.
2. "London 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition Sailing Instructions" (PDF). Retrieved 1 April 2014.
3. "London 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition Provisional course assignment" (PDF). 25 July 2012. Retrieved 1 April 2014.
4. "Men's One Person Heavyweight Dinghy". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 18 April 2020. Retrieved 2 April 2014.