Tom Slingsby – New Laser World Champion

by Rob Kothe on 11 Jul 2007 22 year Australian Tom Slingsby from Gosford (AUS) has won the 2007 Laser World Championship title at the ISAF Sailing World Championships in Cascais, Portugal.

Slingsby won gold after recovering from a poor start to finish sixth in the Medal Race. Deniss Karpak (EST) was in the silver medal position until he was required to do a 720 penalty turns.

A fast surfing final run lifted Andrew Murdoch (NZL) up to second place in the Medal Race and gave him the silver medal, with Estonia’s Karpak third. Croatian Mate Arapov finished fourth and Paul Goodison (GBR) the current ISAF World Ranked number one sailor finished fidth.

A fe days ago Slingsby commented ‘Consistency will win this regatta.’

In reflecting on his World Championship success, Slingsby pointed to two key factors which have become a recurring theme throughout the Championships.

First of all the very shifty, tricky wind and then the way to counter it, a more conservative approach aiming at consistent scoring.

'It’s just crazy conditions out there,' said the new Laser World Champion. 'You couldn’t afford to be too risky, if you went too far to one side you put it all on the line – you were first or last. I think I played a bit more percent game than a lot of the sailors and I didn’t end up with too many high scores – I think I was just a bit more consistent.'

Slingsby’s win in no surprise. Over the past three seasons, he has won more regattas in Europe than any other sailor. He was the World Championship silver medalist in 2006 (a shin injury prevented him from competing in 2005, after three wins in Europe ).

This year he won in Holland then at the 2007 Laser Europeans before arriving in Cascais and he is renowned for his speed in heavy weather conditions.

Despite a nightmare start to the regatta, with a 21 in the opening race, Slingsby cruised through the rest of the opening series to lead going into the gold fleet, with a string of wins.

There his conservative approach really paid dividends, with two solid if unspectacular scores on Sunday, a 19 and a 9 giving him a 12-point lead going into the Medal Race.

However his ordinary start in the medal race brought back memories of Korea last year, when in the Medal race of last year’s Laser Worlds in Korea, fellow Australian Michael Blackburn match raced him out of the gold medal spot, but this time round Slingsby recovered from the poor start to finish sixth and claim the World title.

He said after the Medal Race that the memories of Korea had been playing on his mind, 'To come so close last year and lead for seven days and lose on the eighth day, this year it was definitely going through my head today. It’s just such a relief to finally get one and hopefully I can get more in the future as well.'


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11


1   AUS 191002 SLINGSBY, Tom 21 1 1 2 1 1 16 9 6 - - 43

2   NZL 191008 MURDOCH, Andrew 23 2 3 1 8 9 24 2 2 - - 52

3   EST 191062 KARPAK, Deniss 8 DNF 12 1 7 6 8 3 5 - - 55

4   CRO 191046 ARAPOV, Mate 2 2 7 9 10 2 11 12 9 - - 61

5   GBR 191001 GOODISON, Paul 3 5 2 4 DNF 5 26 11 3 - - 62

6   SWE 191137 MYRGREN, Rasmus 6 3 10 16 10 7 4 20 4 - - 64

7   CHI 191005 DEL SOLAR, Matias 3 6 4 5 3 16 12 28 8 - - 65

8   FRA 191069 LE BRETON, Thomas 3 8 1 2 5 29 34 8 7 - - 70

9   CRO 191011 RADELIC, Luka 2 11 6 10 2 13 29 25 1 - - 71

10   POR 191003 LIMA, Gustavo 28

11   CRO 191017 STIPANOVIC, Tonci 18 3 12 10 3 23 6 17 1 - - 70

12   SWE 191135 SUNESON, Karl 33 10 9 7 4 27 18 7 4 - - 86

13   FRA 191067 PRUVOT, Félix 6 5 BFD 11 2 17 15 18 14 - - 88

14   GER 191080 KAMRATH, Malte 19 4 26 5 6 17 7 37 6 - - 90

15   GER 191016 SCHADEWALDT, Tobias 9 7 6 7 12 8 44 35 7 - - 91

16   GER 191083 GROTELüSCHEN, Simon 5 1 2 4 18 28 31 34 5 - - 94

17   CRO 191010 VUJASINOVIC, Milan 12 5 8 BFD 5 4 28 19 15 - - 96

18   URU 191142 FOGLIA, Alejandro 1 21 15 2 6 10 47 39 3 - - 97

19   ESP 191060 HERNANDEZ, Javier 22 9 8 27 9 19 2 45 2 - - 98

20   BRA 191030 FONTES, Bruno 17 11 10 11 19 4 3 29 24 - - 99

21   AUS 191006 BLACKBURN, Michael 7 4 20 22 1 3 32 43 12 - - 101

22   SLO 191007 ZBOGAR, Vasilij 16 8 9 18 13 15 19 15 8 - - 102

23   DEN 191053 NYHOLM, Anders 8 15 2 12 13 30 1 27 38 - - 108

24   FIN 191064 SUOMALAINEN, Roope 37 16 5 3 5 11 17 23 28 - - 108

25   NZL 191121 COUTTS, Matt 27 10 5 9 15 8 5 32 30 - - 109

26   NZL 191013 BULLOT, Michael 11 14 3 4 14 36 20 33 11 - - 110

27   GER 191085 SCHLONSKI, Alexander 14 10 4 5 11 10 36 22 34 - - 110

28   ITA 191098 ROMERO, Diego 1 24 8 17 23 14 9 50 16 - - 112

29   USA 191143 CAMPBELL, Andrew 13 7 9 BFD 7 24 23 13 18 - - 114

30   FRA 191070 PRUVOT, Corentin 7 8 11 15 28 13 25 26 9 - - 114