The New Caledonian windsurfer won the silver medal in the RS-X category on Saturday.
The New Caledonian knew that he could not win the gold medal. The Dutchman Kiran Badloe was clearly ahead of the others. His main rivals were the Italian Mattia Camboni and the Pole Piotr Myszka. There is a God for Caledonia as these two competitors were sidelined at the start of the race due to a false start. It was not a foregone conclusion, however, as he too was stopped by the judges for getting a jump on the start. After long minutes of waiting, the Caledonian was crowned with only one small point of advance on the third, the Chinese Kun Bi. It is a great day for Caledonia. Thomas Goyard is indeed the first Caledonian to win an individual Olympic medal. Several Caledonians have already won medals, but as a team.
First Caledonian individual medal
The 29-year-old New Caledonian is not an unknown. Since the beginning of the week, I’ve been through all kinds of emotions,” he assures our colleagues in the newspaper Le Monde. I fell in the water twice, that never happens. I swam for fifteen seconds behind my board on the first day, and now this scenario…”. Son of a scientist at Ifremer, Thomas Goyard was born in Martinique (Caribbean). He arrived in New Caledonia as a child. One Goyard hides another. His brother Nicolas was crowned world champion in the discipline in 2019.
