Olympic champion Tom Burton, Matt Wearn sail to world Laser medals

AUSTRALIA will end the year with only one Olympic class sailing world title after a daytime storm deprived Rio champ Tom Burton of his chance to win the world Laser crown.

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AUSTRALIA will end the year with only one Olympic class sailing world title after a daytime display of thunder and lightning deprived Tom Burton of a last chance to add the world Laser crown to his Rio gold medal in Split, Croatia.

Burton, Australian sailing’s lone gold medallist in Rio, had hoped to become Australia’s second Olympic class world sailing champion of 2017 with a last race comeback.

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But a byproduct of the storm activity was ultra-light, patchy breeze unsuitable for a double-scoring Medal race.

Australia's Tom Burton celebrating after winning his Laser gold in Rio.

The decision to stay ashore was a blow for the Aussie duo of Burton and Matt Wearn who both had a slim chance of taking the lead from Cypriot sailor Pavlos Kontides with success in the finale.

But without the race Kontides became the first sailor from Cyprus to win a world crown in a boat sailed in the Olympic arena with Burton claiming silver and Wearn bronze.

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In July, seven-time world champion Mat Belcher and his crew, Will Ryan, won the world 470 crown - their fourth together as a team — for Australia’s only Olympic class crown of the year.

Tom Burton after winning his gold medal in Rio last year. p

In other results this season from the class of the Rio Olympics, London Olympic champions and 2016 bronze medallists Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen opted not to race the 49ers world championships due to America's’s Cup commitments, while Rio silver medallists Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin finished 11th at their Nacra 17 world titles, held for the first time in foiling boats.

Rio sailor Jake Lilley was 13th at the world Finn championships, 470 women Carrie Smith and Jamie Ryan finished 23rd at their world regatta and Laser Radial Olympian Ashley Stoddart was 46th at her world championship.

In Rio, Australia did not field teams in either the RSX men’s or women’s classes or the 49erFX, the newest women’s boat at the Olympics.