Kiran Badloe: the last Olympic champion of the RS:X era | Photo: World Sailing

Kiran Badloe and Yunxiu Lu claimed the RS:X gold medals at Tokyo 2020, in Japan.

It's the end of an era for the legendary RS:X windsurfing.

The historic sailboarding class concludes its fourth and last participation in the Olympic Games since it made a grand debut in Beijing 2008.

Badloe had a lead of 19 points ahead of the medal race.

As a result, the Dutch only had to finish the final regatta, avoid disqualification, to secure the gold medal.

And that was exactly what happened.

Badloe finished second in the medal race and collected the third consecutive Olympic RS:X men's title for his country.

Dorian van Rijsselberghe, Kiran's training partner and friend, had won the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympics.

The fight for the silver and bronze medals was intense.

Mattia Camboni started strong, but he was disqualified after an irregular start. Piotr Myszka, who was racing for bronze, pulled off the course for the same reason.

But the drama was not over.

Thomas Goyard was comfortable cruising around the two-lap course, but he was too disqualified for breaking the start line early.

His only hope was that his previous advantage points would be sufficient to secure an Olympic medal.

In the end, the French windsurfer was able to celebrate a silver medal, while Kun Bi stole bronze from Yoav Cohen by a single point.

In the women's fleet, there was a tight battle between three sailboarders for the podium.

The low wind conditions forced windsurfers to pump their sails to go faster.

The positions kept changing throughout the medal race and, in the end, Yunxiu Lu secured gold, Charline Picon took silver, and Emma Wilson kept bronze.

RS:X Windsurfing at Tokyo 2020 | Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medals

Men
1. Kiran Badloe (NED)
2. Thomas Goyard (FRA)
3. Kun Bi (CHN)

Women
1. Yunxiu Lu (CHN)
2. Charline Picon (FRA)
3. Emma Wilson (GBR)

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