MARSEILLE, France -- Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti of Italy retained their Olympic title in the mixed team multihull Thursday, and Austria's Lara Vadlau and Lukas Maehr combined to win gold in the mixed dinghy, a new sailing category for the Paris Games.
In women's kitesurfing, Ellie Aldridge of Britain won gold after two close finals races, with Lauriane Nolot of France winning silver and Annelous Lammerts of the Netherlands taking bronze.
"We knew winning again would be the hardest thing of all," Tita said of adding the gold medal in mixed team multihull to their victory in Tokyo three years ago. "It's a success that comes over a long, long time."
Mateo Majdalani and Eugenia Bosco of Argentina took silver in the event, also known as Nacra 17, while Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson of New Zealand got bronze.
Usually the catamarans fly off the water on foils, but the same light breezes that have plagued Olympic sailing for a week meant the racers never got to foiling, and that's rare for a medal race.
"We knew Marseille was going to throw everything at us," Wilkinson said.
The dinghy known as 470 became a mixed event in these Games, the first with equal medal opportunities for men and women.
In that race, completed just before the multihull final, Keiju Okada and Miho Yoshioka of Japan won silver and Anton Dahlberg and Lovisa Karlsson of Sweden took bronze.
"It's a big honor to give back to our country," Maehr said.
Austria's last Olympic gold medal in sailing was 20 years ago.
In the men's kitesurfing event, Toni Vodisek of Slovenia and Max Maeder of Singapore were joined by Valentin Bontus of Austria and Riccardo Pianosi of Italy.
One race in the men's finals was held, but the leader didn't seal it with a win, which went to Bontus instead. Since no race can start later than 5:37 p.m., the competition was pushed back to Friday.