Portuguese sailors Carolina João and Diogo Costa finished second in the 470 class medal race at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, finishing the race on Thursday in fifth place and securing Portugal’s eighth Olympic diploma.
Despite finishing second in the regatta, the Portuguese pair were unable to improve on the fifth place they left for the deciding regatta, finishing the competition with 53 points, while Austria’s Lara Wadlau/Lukas Maher won gold with 38 points, Japan’s Keiju Okada/Miho Yoshioka won silver with 41 points, and Sweden’s Anton Dahlberg/Lovisa Karlsson won bronze with 47.
This was Carolina Joao’s second participation in the Olympic Games: she finished 34th in the radial laser at Tokyo 2020, the same happened with Diogo Costa, who, in the team with Pedro Costa, was 15th out of 470 at Tokyo 2020.
The best Portuguese performance in the 470 class sailing still belongs to the duo Hugo Rocha/Nuno Barreto, with a bronze medal in the 470 class at the Atlanta Games in 1996, and a silver medal in the Star class in Rome in 1960, won by Mario Quina and José. Quina continues to have the best overall result in sailing.
With fifth place, Carolina João and Diogo Costa secured Portugal’s eighth Olympic diploma after judoka Patricia Sampaio, who won bronze in the 78 kg weight category, cyclist Nelson Oliveira, who finished seventh in the time trial, triathletes Vasco Vilas and Ricardo Batista, fifth and sixth in the men’s triathlon, joined by another in the mixed relay with Melanie Santos and Maria Tomé, shooter Maria Ines Barros in the Olympic pit and gymnast Gabriel Albuquerque on the ski jumps.