Qualifying Complete at Laser Worlds

Published on July 5th, 2015

Kingston, ON (July 5, 2015) After light winds cancelled racing yesterday at the Laser World Championship, better conditions today allowed for three races to conclude a 7-race qualifying stage. Philipp Buhl (GER) leads the 158-boat field, with Nick Thompson (GBR) and Juan Ignacio Maegli (GUA) completing the top three. The fleet will now be divided to begin the final series (July 6-8). The qualifying series races and the final series races will count for total points in the championship.

Additional details from the event:
Racing began with 5-7 knots from the South West. The wind then picked up for the last race to 10-12 knots. Based on the current results, 8 of the 9 Olympic Laser Standard spots available at this event were taken today by competitor who qualified for gold fleet.

Regatta leader Juan Ignacio Maegli representing Guatemala placed third in the first race of the day, with Kristian Ruth representing Norway in 1st and previous regatta leader Matthew Wearn in 2nd . Maegli GUA then fell back in the fleet in the second and third race, and is now sitting 3rd overall. Race 2 was won by Aleksander Arian representing Poland, followed by Andy Maloney representing New Zealand in 2nd and, Benjamin Vadnai representing Hungary in 3rd. For the last race of the day, Yellow Flight was dominated by the Italians. Giovanni Cooccoluto, Alessio Spadoni, Enrico Strazzera rep Italy places 1, 2, and 3 respectively.

Blue Flights’ first race was won by Tonci Stipanovic representing Croatia, Sam Meech representing New Zealand placed 2nd and James Espey representing Ireland finished 3rd. Lorenzo Brando Chiavarini representing Great Britain placed 1st in race 7 for his second bullet of the regatta. He was followed by Colin Cheng representing Singapore in 2nd and Charlie Buckingham representing the United States in 3rd. Blue Flight Race 7 began with Bruno Fontes representing Brazil in the lead. Colin Cheng SIN was able to pull ahead of Fontes BRA, to place 1st overall. He was followed by Julio Alsogaray representing Argentina in 2nd, Marco Gallo representing Italy in 3rd and Fontes BRA in 4th.

Red Flights’ race 5 consisted of a tacking duel between Tom Burton representing Australia and Christopher Barnard representing the United States. On the last leg of the race, Burton and Barnard were locked tack for tack, before Burton was able to fake a tack to get clean air and win the race. Race 6 for the Red Flight was won by Nick Thompson representing Great Britain, moving him up to second overall. The final race of the day in the red flight was won with a huge lead by Stefano Peschiera representing Peru. Barnard USA was able to place third in the last race, moving him up from 28th to 9th overall.