Yachting was first contested at the 1900 Olympics. It made its next Olympic appearance in 1908 and has been on every Olympic program since that year. Yachting has had a varied program that is usually changed every few Olympiads as the popularity of various boats waxes and wanes. The trend has been towards smaller and smaller boats, with fewer crew members. 

In some of the early Olympics, crews had as many as 10-12 sailors. During the 2000 Sydney Games, only the Solings had a three-person crew, with six events contested by lone sailors. The Olympic sailing program in 2000 consisted of men's, women's and mixed events. Sailing made its Olympic debut in Sydney, as it became the first Olympic sport to make a name change, the sport formerly being called yachting. The Dragon became an Olympic Class in 1948, a status it retained until the Munich Games in 1972.

YEAR	VENUE	GOLD MEDALLIST	COUNTRY
1948	London	Thor Thorvaldsen	Norway
1952	Helsinki	Sigve Lie	Noway
1956	Melbourne	Folke Bohlin	Sweden
1960	Rome	H.R.H.Constantine of Greece	Greece
1964	Tokyo	Ole Valdemar Henrik Berntsen	Denmark
1968	Mexico	George Shelby Friedrichs Jr.	USA
1972	Munich	John Cuneo	Australia

Much of the experience and development of the Dragon occurred in the north European countries in the years after the Second World War. As the Class grew in popularity around the world, so the nationality of the Olympic Gold medallist diversified. The winning of the Gold medal in Munich by Queenslander John Cuneo (pictured on right with well known Sydney sailor Lawrence Hinchecliffe) saw an intense period of boat building and international competition within Australia.

The Class is now more stable without the pressures of Olympic competition every four years, and the development of GRP boats has led to more modern boats and less annual maintenance than that associated with timber boats.

Since the Olympics the Dragons have gone from strength to strength. There were those who thought the replacement of the traditional designed Dragon as the Olympic Class by the new Soling would be the start of the end for the Dragon as a competitive Class. But in fact the opposite has occurred. The major reason for this has been the ongoing controlled development of the boat.