Sailing: Argentina's Lange and Saroli win Nacra catamaran gold
By Jeb Blount
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Argentine helmsman Santiago Lange and crew Cecilia Carranza Saroli won gold in the Nacra 17 mixed-sex catamaran class at the Rio Games on Tuesday after a fast medal race that saw wind pick up smartly on Guanabara Bay's Pao de Acucar course.
Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin of Australia, came within a single point of gold but their second-place finish was not enough to close the overall point gap built up with Lange and Carranza Saroli in the 12 preliminary races before the medal round.
Their silver also came as a result of a tie break with Thomas Zajac and Tanja Frank of Austria, who finished the regatta with the same amount of points as Australia, 78, but took bronze instead because they finished third in the medal race, one spot behind Waterhouse and Darmanin.
Sailors receive points equal to their finish position in each preliminary race. In the medal race those points are doubled. The crew with the lowest score wins.
The results were the tightest of the Rio 2016 Olympic regatta. A day of steady and firm to strengthening winds allowed organizers to complete four medal races, two of them - the men's Laser and women's Laser Radial classes - having been postponed on Monday.
The other race was in the men's Finn class heavy single-person dinghy.
Organizers had originally expected to move the Nacra 17 medal race to Wednesday.
(Reporting by Jeb Blount; Editing by Andrew Hay)